Editors’ Note

Jeanniey Walden started her career as a teacher. Her first business role was at JCPenney where she quickly advanced from managing call centers to leading Corporate Customer Relations. She worked for Echomail before being recruited to oversee the first e-mail marketing division of Grey Direct Worldwide, and later pursued new ventures working with a variety of start-ups and eventually formed her own digital marketing agency. Walden’s digital agency was acquired by OgilvyOne where she became Executive Director of its digital dialogue business. While at Ogilvy, Walden started the first e-mail marketing trade organization – The Email Experience Council. Walden has also worked at Zinio, where she led the development of VIVMag, the world’s first full interactive digital magazine, served as the interim president for Indieflix, and was a founding partner for RingBlingz. She was later hired to transform the business at NOOK by Barnes and Noble and served as Global Chief Marketing Officer at Mercer. She joined DailyPay as the first C-suite female executive outside of the founding team. Her success has led her to be included in the Top 30 under 30 in Ad Age. Walden earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in education and teaching from the University of Pittsburgh.

Company Brief

DailyPay (dailypay.com), powered by its industry-leading technology platform, is on a mission to build a new financial system. Partnering with America’s best-in-class employers, including Dollar Tree, Berkshire Hathaway and Adecco, DailyPay is the recognized gold standard in on-demand pay. Through its massive data network, proprietary funding model and connections into over 6,000 endpoints in the banking system, DailyPay works to ensure that money is always in the right place at the right time for employers, merchants and financial institutions. DailyPay is building technology and the mindset to reimagine the way money moves, from the moment work starts.

How do you define DailyPay’s mission and how is being purpose-driven a part of DailyPay’s culture and values?

DailyPay is a hypergrowth financial technology company that is completely reimagining the way money moves. We’re on a mission to build a new financial system that starts working the minute work starts because, to-date, the way money moves has been controlled by a set of invisible rules that make all of our lives more difficult:

• Rules that say even if you work and earn money every day, you only get paid once every two weeks.
• Rules that prevent merchants from connecting with their shoppers at the right moment when they want to buy something.
• Rules that decide who gets access to the best banking services.

In response, DailyPay launched its platform and solutions to resolve these issues in our society. Our core product empowers workers with control over, and access to, their earned wages before the traditional payday.

Our core values act as the DNA of our company, holding every aspect of our business together. Every move we make, from hiring employees to creating a marketing campaign, is purposefully planned and executed.

Will you provide an overview of your role and key areas of focus?

As the Chief Innovation and Marketing Officer at DailyPay, my main goal, simply put, is to drive revenue through innovation and marketing. To be a successful CIMO, you need to be data-driven, innovative, creative, and understanding. You have to know what consumers are seeking and figure out an effective strategy to reach them. I guide my team in developing strategies to market our brand, solutions, and products to the right audiences. I’m constantly thinking of ways to bridge the gap between our brand and our end-users and buyers. I spearhead purpose-driven marketing campaigns, which entails creating new website pages, developing a unique narrative to pitch reporters, and gathering impactful data-driven research. Every decision that I make is backed by numbers and processes set in place to achieve individual goals.

How has the role of the CMO evolved and how critical is it for the role to be engaged in business strategy?

CMOs have more creative opportunities than ever because of new technology. Technology creates nontraditional marketing spaces to get DailyPay’s name out through social media, digital media and webinars. In these new spaces, marketers have more creative freedom when creating content. A function which CMOs need to be a part of is in business strategy. It’s critical that CMOs are looped into all aspects of the business to proactively prepare for future events and crisis management. The brand is the face of the company and CMOs have to be ready for internal and external events. CMOs bring in a unique perspective that no other teams can provide. The marketing team works closely with the target audience and is aware of the consumer behavior. To exclude or minimize the CMO’s role in business strategy has a trickle-down effect and will impact the strategies and content from the overall marketing team.

How has technology impacted DailyPay’s marketing initiatives?

With the acceleration of digitization due to the pandemic, companies have been incorporating technologies into their tech stack and picking up new marketing tactics. When most companies resorted to working remotely and in-person events were canceled, everything went virtual. More than ever, companies relied on virtual events to market their products and services. For us, we had to shift gears from traditional marketing tactics and focus more of our time and efforts on digital marketing strategies. Everyone had to get comfortable with Hubspot, Zoom, and other technologies to flawlessly execute our digital campaigns. But the biggest impact technology has had in marketing is it has enabled marketers to create personal, immersive experiences for DailyPay prospects, clients and users. We recently added a chatbot on our website to better accommodate visitors and their needs, cutting out unnecessary wait time and simplifying the process, especially for prospects, to connect with DailyPay.

You place a major emphasis on innovation. Where is innovation taking place in DailyPay’s marketing efforts?

Every day we’re working on improving our solutions and our brand. We recently rebranded our entire company, from logo design to our company goal. With our Series D funding and the direction DailyPay was heading, it was natural to take the brand on a path that sets us apart from our competitors. Since our rebrand, we’ve invested a lot of time into our new brand identity and our statement of values to represent who we are as a company. DailyPay shifted from marketing a sole solution, on-demand pay, to tackling down the entire financial industry that leaves employees at a financial disadvantage.

Today, DailyPay is on a mission to build a new financial system that enables employees to have control over their money. We’re inserting ourselves into the mainstream conversations about work and pay, planting a seed in every listener’s mind. This unique marketing approach of naturally weaving in DailyPay into the conversation has proven to be effective. People now reach out to us about offering DailyPay and reporters contact us to hear about the next workplace trend.

Will you discuss DailyPay’s commitment to diversity and inclusion and how critical it is to bring diverse perspectives and experiences to the table when making business decisions?

Diversity is an integral part of our company culture and how we work. Our company established a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion from day one and have been continuously putting in effort and resources to maintain this culture. Over the past couple of years, we have formed four employee resource groups – DailyWomen, DailyNoire, DailyPride and DailyGray. Each group serves as an open space for inclusivity, mentorship and support for employees that fall under each category.

At DailyPay, diverse perspectives and experiences are welcomed. We believe varying thoughts enable us to have a better, more holistic approach to decision making and prevent anything from falling through the cracks. In 2020, we formed our first Diversity Leadership Committee which consists of exceptional DailyPay members who want to share their insights and create a more inclusive culture here at DailyPay. The selected individuals collaborate with the DailyPay community and the C-suite team to create innovative ideas and opportunities to establish practices for future generations and to cultivate diversity.

Do you feel that there are strong opportunities for women to grow and lead in the industry?

Now more than ever, the demand for women in the financial technology industry and companies in general is increasing. DailyPay surveyed employees across America and we found that 63 percent view that having female leaders in a company is good for business. With more female representation in the fintech space, it’s easier to cultivate a culture of mentorship and care. At DailyPay, we created our first employee resource group for women, DailyWomen, the year DailyPay was founded to encourage and support women in this industry.

What advice do you offer to young people beginning their careers during this challenging and uncertain time?

This is a tough situation to be in and it’s okay to feel unsettled. It might not be the typical first career experience, but try to find the silver lining. Take this time to figure out what you really want to do or like to do. Work on your technical skills by taking online classes. Spend some time with family when you have the opportunity. You still have a lot of time left. There’s no need to feel rushed or pressured.