Professional Background

MOVE Guides, Founder and CEO (United State): 2012 – Present

#Mobility4All, Founder (United States): 2017 – Present

Bay Area Mobility Management, Board Member (United States): 2018 – Present

Standard Chartered & Dubai World, Investment Team (Hong Kong and Singapore): 2008 – 2009

Lehman Brothers, Corporate Finance (Hong Kong and India): 2006 – 2007

Career Insider

Q: Why global mobility, and how did you get started in the industry?

A: I started my career as an investment banker and while I worked in finance, I lived through Asia. I saw that companies were increasingly global, employees were increasingly mobile and no one had built a solution to effectively and efficiently manage a global mobile workforce. Traditional HR systems solved a different problem and legacy relocation companies were outdated. The employee experience was compromised and companies were not maximizing the potential of their global workforce. So, I decided to build the first global mobility management suite to solve this!

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Q: How much do you think good assignment management impacts the ultimate relocation experience?

A: This is incredibly important to the ultimate employee experience. Assignees expect all of the back-office activities - compensation, allowance payments, tax, immigration etc - to be efficient and accurate. When they are not, it really impacts the employee experience. It’s difficult for companies to manage all of these administrative activities without a solution like our expatriate management product.

Industry Insider

Q: MOVE Guides has key partnerships with PWC and Team Relocation, and has now acquired Polaris. How does this integrated approach benefit the business?

A: Global mobility management is an incredibly large and fragmented market. It’s projected to have total spend of more than $200bn with a software value of nearly $15bn by 2023. Our GMM suite connects relocation logistics, immigration, tax and expatriate management into a unified solution of technology, data and employee experience. To do this, we must partner with best in class service providers like TEAM Relocations, and accelerate through strategic acquisitions to accelerate our roadmap.

Q: Are they any crucial areas you are currently looking at to further expand the MOVE Guides offering?

A: We have a clear roadmap that aligns to where we see the industry progressing. This is aligned with helping companies manage a more agile workforce across any and all types of employee mobility.

Q: Have you found any major difficulties splitting the business between San Francisco and London?

A: We actually have 17 global offices (8 offices and 9 affiliate offices), so overall, we are incredibly global. Global, distributed workforces always need great communication, empathy and collaboration to be a success. Two of our company values speak to this - Collaborate Radically and Be Global Citizens. We recruit for people who match our values and make a big effort to connect the teams through our annual meetings and ongoing virtual communications. And of course, nothing replaces face-to-face time. So, I travel frequently.

Q: What is the most important strategic tip you can give to companies handling global mobility?

A: Global mobility has historically been viewed as a cost and process centre. I encourage companies to think about mobility as a core part of their talent strategy - a way to develop an agile workforce and retain and reward staff. Millennials, in particular, often find mobility experiences as a key part of their employment and development experience.

Visionary Insider

Q: What do you see as the key external forces that are driving change in the global mobility industry?

A: The world is incredibly complex and global today, and companies face talent shortages and changing workforces. With this comes the need for more management tools for companies to manage their global mobile workforce. At the same time, employees, especially millennial employees increasingly look for their jobs to provide experiences, across roles and locations. In fact, nearly 90% of employees today want to work abroad at some point in their career. All of this is drives the mobility industry -- and its significant current growth!

Q: What more can be done to improve current global mobility practices to benefit talents on the move?

A: It's important for global mobility suites, like MOVE Guides, to continue to put the employees at the heart of their design and processes. Everything we do is ultimately to ensure employees can move seamlessly and maximize their career and personal potential. Effective and efficient management of this global mobile talent also enhances this experience.

Either/Or…

Short-term or long-term assignment? Short-term
Airbnb or serviced apartments? Services Apt
Excel or global mobility software? Global mobility software
Lump-sum or flex-ben? Flex ben
Facebook or LinkedIn? LinkedIn
Outlook or Gmail? Gmail
Taxi or Uber? Uber
iOS or Android? iOS
Mac or PC? Mac
Computer or tablet? Computer
Work hard or play hard? Work hard

* Fields marked with this asterisk are mandatory.

Brynne Kennedy - Founder and CEO - MOVE Guides