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 DSP, as well as managing global accounts and a team of thirty plus.
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
Customer Experience
Employee Experience
Communication
Leadership
Teamwork
Strategic Planning
Change Management
Sustainability
Learning & Development
Languages spoken
English
A more detailed description of my journey
Before entering the world of mobility, I enjoyed a number of different roles, including 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 relocation market. My boss saw potential in me, and I found myself 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 documents we established a decent foundation to build from. Within twelve months we found ourselves 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, which 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, managing the client relationships, as well as a team of consultants in-house and external home search consultants, whilst the business also branched into Estate Agency.
After working for a small privately owned company for fourteen years, the time felt right to move on to something bigger and more global, I wanted to stay in the industry primarily because I enjoyed the people element and the variety. By coincidence an old 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 the UK DSP team, which was effectively established as a service partner to the larger global clients managed in the larger offices. 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 a role as Director of Client Services UK and Germany became available, which I interviewed for and was appointed. I was excited for the opportunity to become more involved with the running of the business, 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. Encouraging resilience and personally motivating the DSP teams was critical.
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 was also 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 wondered if counselling might be something that I could apply myself to. I decided to enrol in a six-month foundation course in humanistic counselling after which, I decided to pursue a masters in Transactional Analysis. In all honesty, I was becoming tired of working for a large organisation, as it felt to me that they 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, having been introduced by a colleague who was working with K2. I thought 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, including the understanding that our people make our business. I enjoy heading up one of our largest global client accounts, building and maintaining a positive partnership, and constantly streamlining and evolving our way of working. This also enables me to have contact with all our offices around the globe and 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 working with our sustainability and DE&I teams, as well as working with our external training partner.
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