ME Bank has named advertising executive Rebecca James as its first chief marketing officer. She started yesterday. Jamie McPhee, ME Bank's chief executive officer, said creation of the CMO role is "an important building block" in the growth strategy of the bank, as it moves to establish a broad and unified focus across customer, product, brand and marketing.   As evidence of this trajectory, he pointed to the bank's three-year, A$60 million technology transformation program, due for completion this year, and investments in product development, distribution channel changes and digital and online developments. Some ME Bank branches are being replaced by expanded mobile and workplace banking activities"The creation of this new role should be seen as an extension of this strategic approach, putting the key elements that make up our offer to customers (customer insights, product design, brand and marketing) under the control of one area of the business," McPhee said.James has more than 20 years' experience in marketing and advertising. After starting at American Express, she moved to independent agency Lavender, where she was managing director for seven years. Clients included Westpac, BT Financial Group, American Express, Qantas, Telstra, Coles, IKEA and Microsoft.