Why Your Best Financial Communicators Are Leaving for Fintech and Consulting, and How to Stop It

Financial services firms have a quiet but expensive problem in their communications functions. There isn’t a mass exodus, which is part of why most firms haven’t noticed it yet. But the people quietly leaving are the ones the firm can least afford to lose: strategic, digitally fluent, crisis tested. The exact profile that took years to build and that the market is now happily absorbing. 

As a recruiter in the industry, I see this pattern week after week in conversations with senior financial communicators. Understanding why it’s happening is the first step to fixing it. 

What’s Actually Happening 

Top financial communicators are being actively pursued by fintechs, specialist PR consultancies, and the communications practices of the major management consulting firms. People who five years ago would have viewed a senior in-house role at a global bank or asset manager as a career peak are now treating it as a stepping stone. 

The pattern is sharpest in London and New York, and it’s most pronounced among mid-to-senior professionals with three things in common: strong digital instincts, real crisis experience and the credibility to advise at C-suite level. In other words, the talent every financial services firm needs, and few are managing to keep. 

Why They’re Leaving 

The reasons come up so consistently I can almost predict them. 

Communications is still treated as a support function in too many firms. That’s the most common single complaint, and it’s the one most likely to make a senior communicator pick up the phone when a fintech calls. In a fintech, the comms lead often owns the narrative end to end: product launches, funding announcements, regulatory engagement, founder positioning. In a traditional firm, they’re sometimes still being briefed three days after the decision is made.

Career velocity is faster outside. Banks and asset managers have layered structures designed for risk management, not progression. A senior communicator who’d wait six years for a Head of role internally can become Head of Communications at a Series C fintech in eighteen months. Some of them then move into Chief Communications Officer roles at the same firm by year three. That math is hard to argue with.

Compensation is genuinely competitive now. This is newer than the other shifts and not yet fully priced in by traditional firms. The conventional wisdom was that banks paid better than agencies, and broadly true, that still holds at junior levels. But at senior levels, equity in a fast-growing fintech, paired with a competitive base, can match or exceed total compensation at a bulge-bracket bank. The consultancies have also moved their senior comms bands meaningfully upward in the last two years.

The day-to-day work is more interesting. Fintech and consulting communicators work with newer tools, better data, and a wider remit. AI-supported listening, integrated owned-channel strategies, content engines that actually function. Traditional firms have the budgets but often not the appetite, and senior communicators notice.

Culture and pace. I hesitate to lead with this because it’s the answer candidates give last, after they’ve already decided. But once they’ve decided, it’s the answer they emphasise. Bureaucracy, slow decision-making, hybrid policies that feel grudging rather than genuine. None of these things alone causes someone to leave. Together, they make leaving easier.

What It Costs You 

The cost of losing strong communicators sits in places that don’t show up on the comms function’s P&L. Weaker reputation management during regulatory or market stress. Slower internal communications during periods of change, which then becomes an HR and culture issue. Vacancies that drag on for nine months because the senior market is thin and your firm now has a reputation for not retaining its best. The institutional knowledge and relationships that walked out the door with the person who left. 

These costs are real, and they’re significantly higher than the cost of keeping the person. 

What Actually Works 

Most retention advice in this space reads like a checklist. The honest answer is that some of it matters far more than the rest. 

The single highest-leverage move is genuinely treating communications as a strategic function. Not in the all-hands speech, in the room. A senior communicator who is brought into strategy conversations before announcements are drafted, who advises the CEO on positioning rather than packaging it, who sits in the room when crisis response is being designed rather than executing it, almost never leaves for a fintech. The ones who leave are the ones who’ve concluded the firm will never make that shift. 

After that, compensation matters but more narrowly than firms assume. The most impactful move is usually a meaningful retention bonus or long-term incentive structure for the two or three communicators you genuinely can’t afford to lose, rather than a broad band uplift across the team. Treat senior comms compensation the way you treat compensation for senior revenue-generating roles. 

Career pathways come third. People leave because they can’t see where they’re going. A clear progression to Head of, then to Group Head or CCO, with visible recent precedent inside the firm, slows the outflow significantly. 

The other interventions, modernising tools, improving flexibility, hiring proactively from adjacent fields like investor relations or sustainability, all matter. But they’re amplifiers, not the core fix. 

Final Thought

The financial communications market has changed faster than most firms have adjusted. The professionals you most want to keep have more credible options than at any point in the last decade, and they’re using them. 

The firms still treating communications as a tactical, media-relations function will continue to lose talent to the firms that treat it as strategic. The shift isn’t theoretical. It’s already happening, and it’s costing the firms that haven’t noticed. 

Whether you’re hiring or considering your next career move, our team would be delighted to support you.

Allyson Kurian is Head of Corporate and Financial. Allyson is a specialist headhunter in corporate affairs and financial communications recruitment, focusing on mid-to-senior level roles both agency-side and in-house. 

Hanson Search Group is a global talent consultancy providing executive search, recruitment and leadership advisory services. Built on more than twenty years of trusted relationships, we operate as a connected global platform of specialist practices with expert consultants embedded in key markets.