Executive Forum submission guidelines
What we publish, what sends a piece back, and the standard every submission is read against. Worth ten minutes before you write anything.
Who we accept
People with direct responsibility for the thing they want to write about: heads of architecture, operations, risk, data, technology, compliance and strategy at banks, insurers, asset and wealth managers, and their opposite numbers at the firms serving them.
Seniority is a proxy and not the test. The test is whether you have sat in the room where the decision was argued, and can write about it without a communications team in the loop.
We accept vendors and consultants, on one condition: you write about the problem, not the product. A piece that only makes sense if the reader buys something is a case study, and we do not run those here.
Who we turn down
Agencies applying on behalf of an executive who will not be writing. The byline has to belong to the person doing the thinking.
Anyone whose application reads as a link-building campaign. We can usually tell, the link is nofollow anyway, and it wastes both our time.
Applicants with nothing specific to say yet. "Thought leadership on digital transformation" is not a subject. Come back with an argument.
The bar
An argument, not a topic. "The state of core banking" is a topic. "Most core migrations fail at data reconciliation, not at cutover" is an argument, and everything else in the piece can be evidence for it.
Detail you had to earn. The constraint that made the obvious approach fail. The thing you tried first that did not work. The consideration that changed the decision. This is the part nobody can write from a search engine, and it is the reason a reader stays.
Written by you. We can tell, and so can readers. A piece that has been through a content agency reads like one.
Nothing to sell. Name your employer where the story needs it. If the piece collapses without the product in it, it is marketing and we will send it back.
Claims and evidence
Every empirical claim traces to a real source, or it is stated qualitatively. This is the rule we enforce hardest, on our own writing and on yours. Link the source, or write "most of the institutions we looked at" rather than inventing a percentage.
We remove invented statistics, made-up survey results, and quotes attributed to people who did not say them. It is the most common reason a promising draft comes back, and it is not negotiable — a fabricated figure fails the page however well it reads.
If a number is genuinely yours — your migration, your book, your incident — say so and say how it was measured. That is the most valuable kind of figure there is, and it is the only kind we cannot check for you.
Shape and length
Somewhere between 900 and 2,000 words is usually right. Shorter tends to be a LinkedIn post; longer usually means two pieces.
Lead with the argument. A reader should know what you are claiming inside the first paragraph, not after eight hundred words of scene-setting.
Use headings that say something. "Background" tells a reader nothing; "Why the reconciliation ran for six weeks" tells them whether to keep reading.
Links are welcome where they help a reader. Every outbound link in a Forum piece carries nofollow, so include them for the reader or not at all.
What we do to your draft
We copy-edit for clarity, house style and US English, and we will cut padding. We do not change what you are arguing — if we think the argument is wrong, we send it back and tell you why rather than quietly rewriting it into something you did not say.
We may ask for a source, a cut, or a rewrite of a section. That is a changes requested, not a rejection, and it costs nothing: you are charged when a piece is accepted, so a draft that goes round twice costs exactly the same as one that goes round once.
You approve nothing after acceptance. If our edit changed something you disagree with, tell us and we will fix it or take the piece down — but the byline is yours, so we will not publish words you would not sign.
What sends a piece back
The most useful part of any guidelines page and the one most sites leave out. None of these is a rejection on its own — most are one email and a rewrite.
- A figure with no source. The single most common reason
- A quote attributed to an unnamed "industry leader" or "senior executive at a top-five bank"
- A piece that reads as a product pitch once you take the abstractions out
- Superlatives about your employer: "leading", "best-in-class", "world's #1"
- An argument with no specifics behind it — the shape of expertise without any
- Something already published elsewhere. We publish original pieces
- A draft written by someone other than the byline
- Anything whose purpose is to carry a link
- A subject outside financial services. We publish in one industry and this is not a general business site
What this is
Is this the same as writing for Finantrix Insights?
No, and the difference is the point. Insights is our editorial: we commission it, we do not charge for it, and we do not sell our way into it. The Forum is a paid membership where you publish under your own byline, in its own section, labeled as paid on every page. A Forum piece never appears in Insights.
Doesn't charging for articles compromise your independence?
It would if the two were mixed, so they are not. Forum pieces live in their own section, are labeled on every surface, are excluded from Insights, our buyer guides and our search, and pass no ranking signal. Our editorial remains unbuyable at any price — and a build check enforces the separation rather than leaving it to memory. Read the editorial policy for the whole boundary.
Does membership help my company elsewhere on the site?
No. Your directory entry is assessed on the same terms as any other, membership is not an input to any buyer guide evaluation, and no editorial tool of ours knows who is a member. If that is what you are buying, do not buy this.
Money
What does it cost?
$499 a year to be a member, and $249 for each piece we accept. That is the whole price list. There is no minimum number of articles and no package.
When am I actually charged?
Membership is charged when we approve your application, never before — if we decline it, nothing reaches your card. An article fee is charged at the moment we accept the piece. A piece we turn down, or one still in review, is never charged for.
What if you reject a piece I have written?
You are not charged for it. You can revise it and submit again, or write something else — there is no limit and no per-submission fee. Only an accepted piece costs $249.
How do I cancel?
From your member dashboard, any time. Canceling stops the renewal and ends your ability to submit new pieces. We do not refund time already run.
What happens to my published articles if I stop paying?
They stay up, with your byline, permanently. We take the view that you paid for publication and got it — holding an archive hostage to a renewal would make every published piece a bargaining chip. What lapses is your place in the roster and your ability to submit something new.
Can we pay by invoice instead of card?
Ask. Tell us through the contact form and we will work with your procurement process.
Applying and writing
Who gets accepted?
People with direct responsibility for what they want to write about, who have a specific argument to make. We turn down applications with no subject, agencies writing on someone else's behalf, and anything that reads as a link-building campaign.
Can my communications team write the piece?
No. The byline has to belong to whoever did the thinking, and a piece that has been through an agency reads like one. Being edited is fine and normal; being written for is not.
We're a vendor. Can we join?
Yes, if you write about the problem rather than the product. Name your employer where the story needs it. If the piece stops making sense without your product in it, it is a case study and we will send it back.
How long does a review take?
An application is usually a few business days. A submitted piece is usually a week. If a draft needs changes we tell you what they are, and there is no charge for going round again.
Will you change what I wrote?
We copy-edit for clarity and house style and we will cut padding. We do not change your argument — if we think it is wrong we send it back and say so. The byline is yours, so we will not publish words you would not sign.
Do I get a link to my site?
Yes, from your profile and your byline. It carries rel="nofollow", exactly like every vendor link on this site, so it passes no ranking signal. A Forum membership is worth having because people read it, not because of what it does to a search ranking.
Can I have a piece taken down later?
Yes, and free. Ask through the contact form from the address you joined with, and we retire the URL properly so it does not become a broken link somewhere else.