Catalysing High-Performance Marketing Success with Strategic Leadership

In the following Q&A, K.V. Kuganathan, Group Chief Information Officer at the Janashakthi Group (JXG), discusses Sri Lanka’s IT landscape and the company’s digitalization strategy. He explores innovation, ethical tech use, and leveraging AI/IoT for financial inclusion while navigating industry regulations.

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Catalysing High-Performance Marketing Success with Strategic Leadership

Experience, News

June 10, 2025

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In the following Q&A, Gamika De Silva, Group Chief Marketing Officer at JXG (Janashakthi Group), details the integral role marketing plays in shaping the direction, and success of a company amid shifting business and technological landscapes. His discussion explores the importance of collaboration in navigating businesses as they advance, staying the course of robust marketing strategies, and building brand image.

1. What is the ideal company culture for a high-performing marketing team?

To create a wholesome company culture for a high-performing team to function requires a customer-centric approach from leadership and a team of competent individuals with the right skills who also prioritise the customer’s needs.

Pairing a team’s skills with the right attitude and creating an atmosphere that fuels collaboration and open communication, bound by belief in the brand, is essential to creating a space where colleagues encourage creativity in exploring new strategies.

Consequently, in pursuing new solutions, the team creates learning opportunities for each itself, amplifying its own strength while elevating the brand’s potential.

2. Which essential leadership principles foster innovation in a rapidly changing market?

At JXG, we believe in walking the talk and leading by example. We practice the values that drive our success. When leadership believes in what it sets out to do, it creates a synergy that suffuses all operations.

It’s also important to develop an out-of-the-box approach to obstacles. Your methods will instruct the team on how to challenge norms. While maintaining a certain margin for error, under the right conditions, it’s possible to translate their creative potential into potent motivation.

It’s within this context that JXG’s reputed innovative spirit blossoms. Innovation goes beyond tech for us. We strive for exceptional performances and extraordinary growth. When executing a project, we ask ourselves what makes it extraordinary. It’s one of our cardinal principles. If a product isn’t groundbreaking in its approach to meeting customer needs, we might not proceed with it. Leading a team with these principles is what allows us to produce an ‘X factor’ in our services.

3. How important is leadership in developing strategies during unpredictable market shifts?

A leader’s role is most critical during times of uncertainty. It entails balancing a customer-focused mindset with an awareness of the market’s pulse. Inaction is not an option. During times of uncertainty, a leader needs to be proactive, engage in different research methods, and determine how best to lead one’s team through the storm.

One method we adopt is scenario planning. We visualised our approaches across multiple narratives from economic crises to regulatory changes and technological advancements to ensure we remain steadfast.

4. What is JXG’s ‘North Star’ and how is it communicated across the organisation?

Above all else, the customer remains at the centre of everything we do. Our Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Mr. C.T.A. Schaffter’s goodwill is in our every approach to customer service. From internal campaigns to leadership messaging, and performance metrics, we insist that earning a customer’s long-term trust outweighs immediate profit.

5. Does this help JXG manage short-term marketing wins with long-term brand building?

Indeed. Brand building is an exercise in consistency and patience. Our objectives balance immediate KPIs for financial performance alongside long-term brand equity goals. We track the performance of short-term strategies with long-term brand equity metrics to ensure results do not impede sustainable growth.

6. How do you maintain a cohesive marketing strategy while respecting the uniqueness of each business unit at JXG?

The challenge here is also the key to its success. A cohesive strategy comes down to isolating common threads, and brand values, if you will, that allow a certain flexibility in execution. Especially since different business subcultures have different priorities.

We leverage internal strategies to maintain consistency. Besides cross-functional workshops and efforts to align our leadership teams, we’ve also integrated shared services - Marketing, IT, HR, Legal, Financial, and Admin – across all business units. Together, they create a feedback loop that ensures strategic thinking while allowing each unit autonomy in how they pursue goals within their respective markets.

Despite operating in diverse industries, we move unified in a singular direction. Our shared goal is to enable people to break barriers and forge futures through financial solutions.

While we draw the overarching guidelines at JXG to evenly distribute our value fueled synergy, our business unit brands flourish independently based on their distinct goals and target audiences.

7. How do you strike a balance between agility and consistent brand identity?

We have a clear vision of where the brand should be. We occasionally recalibrate strategies according to market needs and evolving contexts. We consider every brand touch point meticulously to ensure that every detour dovetails with the outcome outlined in the beginning, guaranteeing that we remain aligned with our long-term goals. Exercising this outlook lets us balance agility with consistency.

Personally speaking, brand image is paramount. Our team reflects the JXG brand in everything they do because they embody its essence in customer interactions. This elevates and eases the agility with which we navigate market evolutions and broader consumer expectations. It keeps our brand health and purpose intact. Furthermore, we leverage customer research and evaluations to safeguard brand health.

8. How will JXG position itself to lead the industry in the wake of marketing itself evolving within the financial services sector?

Rapidly evolving tech and digital spaces will be game changers for the industry. Be it AI, Analytics, or other data-driven decision-aiding technologies, the question is how well we can leverage them to benefit our customers. I believe datacentric and informative decision-making enables a high-performance culture where consumers will expect a new kind of customer experience. Companies that fail to evolve will be left behind.

JXG is driven in its goal of becoming a strong financial conglomerate. All our plans lead to this goal. With this objective as our primary driving force, we will move ahead and continue to invest in our team to ensure learning, growth, and talent development.

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