Turning Sales into Trusted Advisors

After the success of the SVB Innovator Card, Silicon Valley Bank needed a way to maintain credibility with founders and CFOs between major launches.

Traditional marketing content existed—but it was, well, marketing: siloed, generic, and disconnected from the conversations sales teams were actually having.

Client-facing teams wanted relevant, shareable insights that helped them start meaningful discussions and position themselves as true advisors, not product pushers.

Build a content platform that would simultaneously:

• Strengthen SVB’s authority with founders, CFOs, and investors.
   
• Equip sales advisors with insights that opened doors and deepened relationships.
   

The vision was to turn thought leadership into a relationship-building engine—something that built credibility for both the brand and the people behind it.

As Content Strategy lead, I partnered with senior Product-Sales Advisors and the Editorial team to create a dual-track thought-leadership engine:

• Startup Insights — for early-stage founders navigating funding, scaling, and survival.
   
• Growth Stories — for mid-to-late-stage CFOs focused on efficiency, control, and sustainable growth.
   

Each piece was ghost-written and promoted for senior advisors, giving them a consistent publishing voice and a credible platform to demonstrate expertise with founders and investors alike.

To operationalize the program, I built the framework and process from the ground up:

• Insight Foundation: Drew directly from our Innovators Card research and ongoing founder and CFO interviews to ensure every piece addressed real-world challenges.
   
• Editorial System: Established a bi-weekly content cadence with shared themes across Marketing, Product, and Sales leadership.
   
• Cross-Channel Distribution: Integrated content into newsletters, web, social, email nurture, and RM enablement kits—meeting clients where they already engaged.
   
• Measurement: Connected engagement analytics to referral and pipeline metrics, proving that advisory-driven content could influence demand.
   

• Meaningful increase in referral volume and lead quality
   
• Recognition as a best-practice model within the marketing organization
   
• 2× Content Marketing Award Nominee
   
• Elevated sales confidence and credibility—advisors used the content to start higher-value, insight-driven conversations with founders and CFOs.
   

“The magic wasn’t in the content—it was in the collaboration. We made thought leadership a sales tool. Every article was co-created with a sales leader, giving the field both ownership and pride.”
 

This program blurred the line between marketing and sales.

It proved that advisory-driven content can be engineered for outcomes—building trust, fueling demand, and reinforcing the product story long after launch.

Postscript

The Startup Insights and Growth Stories series helped shape how SVB connects with founders, CFOs, and investors. Though the site and content have evolved, the framework and philosophy behind this initiative remain visible across SVB’s current content ecosystem. Visit svb.com to see.