News Innovation and Leadership Students Deep Dive into Banking and Brand Rewards for Gen Z 25.02.2026

On Tuesday, 30 Year 10 Innovation and Leadership students took their learning beyond the classroom and visited the fabulous Reward offices on Oxford Street for the launch of an exciting five-week customer engagement case study.

The introductory session was led by Reward’s CEO, Jamie Samaha, alongside members of his senior team. Reward is a leading global Customer Engagement and Commerce Media Platform that works with banks and brands to transform everyday spending into meaningful rewards. Operating on the premise that ‘you are what you spend,’ the company connects banks and retailers through secure data driven targeting. Customers receive personalised offers directly in their banking apps, shop as usual, and earn cashback, discounts or points — a seamless system designed to turn routine transactions into powerful moments of engagement.

Reward’s client portfolio includes more than 300 major high street brands and global names such as Uber, NatWest, Amazon, Visa, Starbucks and Deliveroo.

Students also heard from Anna Jaycocks, Global Marketing Director; Amber Morrison, Senior Communications Manager; and Eimhear Carey, Senior Product Owner (UX/UI), who offered insights into marketing strategy, communications and product design within a fast-growing fintech environment.

This module of the Innovation and Leadership course challenges students to develop and apply their classroom learning on behavioural literacy and research methods to a real-life challenge and to develop their understanding of what truly drives engagement. The brief requires them to consider that while many banks offer reward programmes to encourage loyalty, these initiatives are often designed with older customers in mind. Younger users — like our students who are accustomed to digital-first, social and gamified experiences — frequently find such schemes uninspiring or irrelevant. Acting as a product and innovation team within a bank, our students must design a rewards experience for 13–21-year-olds that is engaging, socially interactive and aligned with young people’s lifestyles, while remaining commercially viable and compliant within a regulated financial environment.

Over the coming weeks, the Godolphin teams will develop and test ideas aimed at helping banks and retailers win the next generation of customers, working closely with the team at Reward. Thank you to the Reward team for giving our girls this fantastic opportunity!