SOFTSWISS took part in TechIsland’s 7th MarComms Community Meetup in Cyprus. During the meetup, Valentina Bagniya, CMO at SOFTSWISS, shared how the company’s flagship initiative, the iGaming Trends Report, has evolved into a full-scale product built and scaled by the in-house marketing team.
Using iGaming Trends as a case study, Valentina Bagniya explained how a research-driven product can go beyond thought leadership, becoming a practical marketing tool that strengthens brand authority and supports sales conversations.
This perspective naturally fed into the panel discussion The Marketing Team Mix: Balancing In-House and Agency Partnerships, where leaders from tech companies, alongside global and local agencies, discussed how organisations are reshaping their marketing structures. The discussion highlighted the shift from full-service agency reliance toward stronger in-house capabilities, while agencies continue to deliver value through specialised expertise, strategic bursts, and multi-market execution.
The panel, moderated by Evgeny Kozlov, Regional Marketing Manager at Aleph Group, featured:
- Valentina Bagniya, Chief Marketing Officer at SOFTSWISS
- Nikolay Kozlov, CMO at Wargaming
- Rebecca Theodorou, Managing Director & Head of Communications Action 360x at Action Global Communications
- Pietra Flouri, General Manager at Thinkbloom
- Olga Loktionova, Representative of SPORTSOFT and PR Director of CAPSBOLD Creative Marketing Agency
Together, the panellists represented a broad spectrum of marketing models across the tech, iGaming, and gaming industries, offering a practical view of how companies balance speed, ownership, and brand intimacy in-house while partnering with agencies for scale and specialised expertise.
One of the main topics of the Q&A session was AI’s role as the third key player in today’s marketing team mix. The panelists shared how they already work with AI in practice, and how it is reshaping collaboration between in-house teams and agencies. Valentina Bagniya also spoke about SOFTSWISS’ approach following the appointment of Denis Romanovskiy as Chief AI Officer (CAIO), and highlighted the rollout of the company’s enterprise AI platform designed to securely scale AI automation by connecting AI capabilities with corporate tools and data.
In 2025, SOFTSWISS’ marketing team was recognised as Best Marketing Team at the EGR Marketing & Innovation Awards, reflecting the company’s ongoing investment in building strong internal marketing capabilities and long-term brand assets.
