Five PR lessons from a decade in finance, fintech and venture capital
As a PR agency based in Antwerp, we have spent ten years securing coverage for private equity firms, fintechs, banks and venture-backed founders in tier-one business papers, national television and beyond. Our work spans private equity, venture capital, fintech, wealthtech, insurtech, regtech, banking, asset management and capital markets – sectors that all share the same regulatory landscape. Over the years, we have mastered the distinct nuances of PR within financial services, fintech and venture capital. The sector is known for its strict regulations, risk aversion and aversion to hype. Navigating this highly complex landscape requires a sophisticated, watertight approach to media relations and financial communications. Which is exactly what we deliver.
Here’s what actually works, drawn from earned media campaigns we’ve run for Motive Partners, KPMG, Start it @KBC, FTI and others. Five lessons any finance, fintech or venture capital communications team can use.
1. A compelling news hook reveals a deeper truth
When KPMG Belgium became the presenting partner of Flanders Classics’ “Closing the Gap” programme, the €1 million investment was a milestone. But sponsorships happen every day.
To create a real impact, we moved away from the standard corporate announcement and focused on a dual strategy: a compelling news hook underpinned by a broader narrative.
- The hook: equal prize money for women’s cycling, first introduced at the Tour of Flanders in 2022 and rolled out across all spring classics by 2023.
- The underlying story: how KPMG and Flanders Classics weren’t just writing a cheque, but actively building a sustainable business model to structurally elevate women’s professional cycling.
We set out to dominate the Belgian news cycle. Instead, we sparked a global conversation.
The campaign travelled far beyond Belgium’s borders, securing over 100 press clippings across 11 countries, a cumulative reach of over 250 million, and €2.87 million in AVE (Advertising Value Equivalency). Most importantly, it helped bring women’s cycling into the global mainstream, creating a snowball effect that prompted other major organisations (including the Tour de France) to follow suit.
The lesson: don’t just pitch a transaction. Find the concrete milestone that carries real newsworthiness and demonstrates a systemic shift. A compelling hook gets journalists through the door; a structural brand story makes them write history.
2. Let the people you’ve helped tell your story
For Start it @KBC, Belgium’s largest start-up accelerator, we shifted the focus away from standard corporate announcements. Instead, we designed a decentralised PR engine: coaching the start-ups on their own media relations, so that every time a founder made the headlines, they naturally credited Start it @KBC as the launchpad behind their success.
To maximise this network effect, we worked in close parallel to build the accelerator’s own authority:
- Strategic corporate PR: creating high-impact media moments tailored to the accelerator’s milestones.
- Ecosystem alignment: maintaining a seamless, direct line of communication with KBC’s central press office and spokespeople.
- Thought leadership: bringing forward-thinking topics such as female and circular entrepreneurship to the public agenda long before they became mainstream.
Ten years, over 3,400 press clippings and €16.8 million in AVE later, the strategy proved its worth. The accelerator’s reputation grew exponentially because the reputations of its start-ups grew first, and because manley consistently bolstered Start it @KBC’s authority alongside them.
The lesson: if you’re a bank, a fund or a corporate innovation programme, your strongest spokespeople aren’t in your boardroom. They are the founders, portfolio companies and partners who succeed because of you — and who will proudly say so, when guided by the right strategy.
3. Symbolism beats an announcement
Flanders Technology & Innovation (FTI) had a bold, future-focused vision that deserved to be showcased on a grand scale. Knowing that true innovation is best experienced first-hand rather than read about on a page, manley designed an experiential, high-impact media relations strategy. In a creative brainstorming session with CityCubes and the Office of Flemish Minister-President Jan Jambon, we devised the ultimate ‘show, don’t tell’ event: a moving showcase.
In Ghent, Flemish Minister-President Jan Jambon and Minister for the Economy Jo Brouns boarded a train alongside over 300 of Flanders’ leading entrepreneurs, including serial tech entrepreneur and Supernova festival founder Jurgen Ingels. During the journey to Antwerp, the carriages served as a rolling lab where tech leaders demonstrated their innovations live to the travelling press. The grand finale awaited on the platform at Antwerp, where Mayor Bart De Wever (now Belgian Prime Minister) welcomed the delegation for a major press conference in Antwerp’s beautiful Central Station.
The strategy generated massive, nationwide coverage, including prime-time features on VRT NWS, VRT Radio 1 and De Tijd. The facts hadn’t changed. The format had.
The lesson: financial and government institutions often resort to static announcements: a corporate statement, a quote, a fact sheet. Journalists, however, look for scenes and momentum. If you can provide them with a vivid experience (a specific venue, a dynamic setting, and key players interacting in real time), you will make the headlines where a standard statement would be overlooked.
4. Trust is built on repetition, not a single spike
Credix, an Antwerp-to-São Paulo fintech scale-up building AI-powered B2B credit infrastructure for Brazil’s SMEs, has been a Manley client since 2022. We developed founder Thomas Bohner’s brand story as a single narrative arc, stage by stage: the €11.32 million Series A round covered by De Tijd and L’Echo (2022), a €78 million growth round covered by Trends and De Standaard (2025), and Bohner’s inclusion among Trends’ “fifty people driving Belgium forward for the next fifty years” to mark the magazine’s 50th anniversary (2026).
None of those moments would have carried the same weight on their own. Each placement paved the way for the next, because journalists had already witnessed the story unfold, to the point where they trusted the direction it was taking even before we’d pitched the next chapter.
5. Precision secures access in regulated sectors
For KPMG’s “Voices on 2030: Financial Services” report, Manley secured an exclusive joint interview and photoshoot in *La Libre* featuring Jean Hilgers (then Director of the National Bank of Belgium) alongside Olivier Macq, KPMG’s Head of Financial Services.
Securing an on-the-record interview with a sitting NBB director is exceptionally rare. This breakthrough was built on thorough preparation long before the first question was asked. By deeply understanding the intricacies of financial policy and regulation, we helped frame the conversation around high-level strategic insights, ensuring a constructive and substantive dialogue for spokespersons and journalists.
The lesson: in highly regulated sectors, access is not secured by pitching harder. It is secured by demonstrating, in advance, that you understand exactly where the regulatory boundaries lie, and by crafting a compelling narrative within those boundaries.
The ultimate return on investment
Take a close look at these five lessons, and you’ll notice they all debunk the biggest myth in modern PR: that faster is better.
In a sector as high-stakes as finance and venture capital, chasing quick media spikes is a losing game. True reputation isn’t built on visibility; it’s built on institutional trust, credibility and share of voice over time. It requires the discipline to choose a single, focused angle over a cluttered message, the patience to let your partners speak for you, and the rigour to master regulatory boundaries before you ever pitch a story.
It is a slower, more deliberate way of operating. But in an industry built on risk management, it is the only approach that yields a lasting return.
Curious how a long-term strategy could do the same for your finance business?
Let’s talk – get in touch at:
Saartje Dietvorst
manley is a strategic PR and storytelling agency, founded by Saartje Dietvorst. We help organisations gain the recognition they deserve through the media, ensuring their impact resonates as widely as possible with the public and government bodies. Since 2014, we’ve been identifying the most compelling stories within companies and presenting them with razor-sharp precision. Based in Antwerp, we work across Europe. Because in a world full of AI-generated content, it’s the authentic stories that matter.
Within the financial services sector, our clients span private equity, venture capital, fintech, wealthtech, insurtech, regtech, banking, asset management and capital markets.
Find out more at www.manley.eu
