Meet Sarah, our Global Account Director
I have worked in mobility for over 27 years and have acquired a breadth of industry experience during this time - from wearing many hats and working my way up the ranks in a small, privately owned RMC, to working for one of the largest RMCs in the role of Client Services Director for UK and Germany, heading up the DSP teams, as well as managing global client relationships and having responsibility for over thirty inhouse employees.
My interest in people and what shapes us also lead me to qualify as a psychotherapeutic counsellor in more recent years.
Sarah's areas of expertise
Account Management
Leadership
Implementation
Client Relations
Employee Experience
Teamwork
Learning & Development
Sustainability
Project Management
Languages spoken
English
A more detailed description of my journey
Before entering the world of mobility, I enjoyed a number of different roles, including carrying out searches with Companies House and forming limited companies for clients and working as a payroll assistant for a large portfolio of private businesses.
My move into relocation wasn’t something I had planned. I joined a privately owned home search company in Knightsbridge, as a PA. This company sourced high value properties for the rich and sometimes famous (Kirsty Young and Rory Bremner spring to mind), who were looking for investments, which we then let and managed. With a high volume of overseas tenants renting these properties the idea developed to explore moving into the corporate relocation market. My boss saw potential in me, and I found myself joining him in presenting our services to potential clients. A few small wins enabled us to start building a team and network, developing our resource library and creating template documentation, as we established a decent foundation to build from. Within twelve months we were at a best and final presentation with KPMG, where we successfully won the business and found ourselves with two hundred moves to manage into the UK. This was a huge challenge but one we met with great success through teamwork, commitment, long hours, and crucially, careful strategic planning.
As the years progressed, I ended up heading up the relocation arm of the business, as the company branched out into estate agency. I managed the client relationships, as well as organising a large group move out of Essen in Germany into the UK. I had overall responsibility for the team of consultants working in-house, as well as our external home search consultants.
Some fourteen years later, and having worked for a small privately owned company, I was keen to stay within the industry but interested in working for a larger and more global organisation. By coincidence an ex-colleague who was working for one of the biggest RMCs at that time, with a US HQ, contacted me to see if I might be interested in an account management role, with opportunities for progression. I joined as Client Account Manager, responsible for a portfolio of global clients, as well as heading up the UK DSP team, which was effectively established as a service partner to the larger global clients managed in the regional headquarters. This side of the role was challenging due to the lack of direct client contact and inability to build relationships and develop strategies. In addition, it required close collaboration with the account directors and managers in the other office. Less than a year later, I was made aware of the role of Director of Client Services UK and Germany which had become available, I interviewed for this position and was successful. I was excited for the opportunity to become more involved with the running of the business, including being responsible for the P&Ls in both offices, as well as the teams and overall client ownership. I also enjoyed being responsible for another office and broadening my knowledge of overseas operations. I remained in this role for nine years and was very involved in establishing relationships throughout the global offices and driving collaboration across teams. Encouraging resilience and personally motivating the DSP teams was also critical to success.
During this time, I also lead a project across our European DSP teams, where we looked at end to end service delivery and program structures, establishing average timings for each element. A model was built that could then be applied to costing requests requested for new business opportunities, meaning we could efficiently satisfy these requests in tight timeframes.
Over this period, I began thinking about where I saw my future. I had stepped unexpectedly into relocation and was finding that a lot of my time was being spent mentoring the team, something that I enjoyed. I thought about my skillset; my ability to actively listen and build relationships, my genuine curiosity in humanity, as well as my consideration of alternative frames of reference. I was interested in counselling and psychotherapy and wondered if this might be something that I could apply myself to. I decided to enrol in a six-month foundation course in humanistic counselling which lead me to pursuing a masters in Transactional Analysis. In all honesty, I was becoming tired of working for a large organisation, as it felt to me that we were losing sight of the employees, in my view our biggest assets. Whilst I didn’t manage to finish my masters in psychotherapy, I did qualify and still practice as a psychotherapeutic counsellor, working one to one and with couples.
My studies were interrupted when I met with Rob McFarland and Nick Plummer. At the time, I felt as though I had fallen out of love with global mobility and relocation, until I listened to Nick speaking about his company with passion I hadn’t experienced before. That meeting was so incredibly positive and left me feeling inspired. Joining K2 was one of the best decisions I have ever made. It is such an inclusive company that has the right set of beliefs and morals, which align with my own, including the understanding that our people make our business. I appreciate the recognition and opportunity that I was given when appointed to head up one of our largest global client accounts. Building and maintaining strong relationships in the regional hubs has been a critical part of the role for me, I deeply value the partnership that we have built which enables my involvement as we constantly review processes in order to streamline and evolve our way of working. This engagement also enables me to have contact with our offices around the globe and to work closely with many members of the K2 family on a daily basis which is fantastic. I also enjoy the variety and experience that I get from engaging with our sustainability and DE&I teams, as well as partnering with our external training partner.
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