How Temenos is leading banking forward through customer and partner insight

Isabelle Guis understands the need for marketing to speak technology’s language. With an engineering background, Guis sees her strength as Temenos’ Chief Marketing Officer in bridging the communication gap between technology innovation and the value it brings to customers.

In a conversation at the Temenos Regional Forum Americas 2025 held May 28-30 in Miami, Guis explained that Temenos values customer centricity above all else. “There is this reliability, this expertise that’s needed to make sure you deliver,” she said. “And you innovate without compromising what you already have.”

Guis also discussed how banks are investing in technology to stay competitive amid economic uncertainty, and why legacy systems can hinder that progress. She outlined paths that banks can take to modernize their core infrastructure, offering alternatives like the choice between cloud or on-premise solutions — or even module-specific upgrades. 

Guis also shared how Temenos’ new motto “Leading Banking Forward” captures the company’s vision for collective progress in the banking industry.

Today’s podcast episode explores Temenos’ customer-centered perspective, the need for digital transformation in banking through modern infrastructure, and the company’s strategic vision of how it can emulate industry-wide progress and leadership.

Listen to the full episode

Apple Podcasts I SoundCloud I Spotify I Google Podcasts

Industry leaders are going all in on tech

Temenos’ customer-first mindset is reflected in its internal culture and outreach. The company surveyed over 400 banking leaders in February and April of this year to gauge how the industry was responding to global economic and geopolitical changes. Guis noted industries typically contract and pull back on investments to limit their risks in a changing market, but the survey’s results were telling.

“They were all investing in tech as a way to get ahead of the market changes and to monitor the customer,” she shared. “They see this as an opportunity, not just as a challenge.”

The survey also revealed that customer experience, staying innovative, providing new offerings, and maintaining growth and operational efficiency continued to be top of mind. Guis said Temenos’ customer messaging is built on customer needs.

“Marketing is all about creating content that’s appealing and relevant to our customers, and making sure that we understand their problems so we can help them find the solution,” she said. “We use this data to make sure we’re on target and also to guide some of the product and some of our sales organization when they need it.”

She added that partners and customers respond well to Temenos’ studies because it gives them a point of reference on where they are and how Temenos could help them get to where they need to be. 

Navigating core banking transformation together

Speaking of strategic technology investments, Guis discussed the need to modernize legacy infrastructure and why relying on outdated tech can significantly limit innovation, degrade the customer experience, and reduce a company’s competitiveness.

“When you have a mainframe and you code in COBOL, it’s a bit hard to have the latest application or even just deploying Gen AI,” she said. Moreover, replacing core systems can be rewarding, but it’s a complicated, long-term investment that is “not for the faint of heart.”

Temenos is focused on developing meaningful solutions to these issues. This year, the company partnered with Microsoft to develop a generative AI copilot that helps banks deliver better products faster to their customers. With core modernization there is no one size fits all, as Guis suggested banks can also invest in module-specific upgrades, decide what to develop in-house as their core competence, what to pass off to a vendor, or build on top of their traditional systems. 

“Some customers decide to go with a vendor for the core but develop all the digital infrastructure and the last touch with their customer, because that’s their differentiator,” she explained. “Others decide to do the opposite. It really depends on which market they play in and where their skillset in-house is.”

Leading banking forward

In May, the company unveiled a new visual identity and a tagline to guide its ethos: Leading Banking Forward. Guis shared that the slogan emphasizes customer centricity — delivering reliable, trustworthy services — while also embracing change and progress through technology and new ideas.

True to its collaborative spirit, Temenos workshopped the tagline with its customers and partners, allowing them to vote on its selection. Guis said the phrase and the process of involving its community underscores the company’s collaborative and future-focused vision for itself and the banking industry. 

“It reflects the culture and the mindset of this community and our customer,” Guis said. “We all have to move forward together. You cannot just have one piece of the puzzle moving forward alone. That’s why they were involved in choosing the tagline, because it’s our tagline. It’s not just about Temenos.”