Cahoot marketing chief moves to the helm

Tim Sawyer, marketing director for Cahoot, has been promoted to “acting head” of the online bank, after managing director Tim Murley moved to head electronic distribution at parent company Abbey National.

Sawyer’s new responsibilities will include operations, customer service, finance and IT. In the short term, he will continue to look after marketing, business development and strategy for Cahoot, but Sawyer does not rule out recruiting a permanent marketing director in the future.

Deborah Cutler, head of brand marketing, and Martin Peterlechner, head of products, will continue to report to Sawyer.

Sawyer was one of the founding members of Cahoot, having previously worked on Abbey National’s e-commerce opportunities. Before this, he held marketing and strategy positions and was responsible for developing the bank’s relationship with supermarket Safeway. He has also worked at Lloyds TSB across the strategy, credit cards and IT divisions.

Murley’s return to Abbey National follows a restructure of the bank’s operations last month, which included retail marketing director Janet Connor moving to the customer sales team (MW March 6). Abbey National is now looking for an external candidate to head its “customer propositions” team, which covers marketing, branding, product strategy, segmentation and customer insight. Cahoot will remain a separate brand.