Experience

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  EmmaTekstra.com

  • California, United States

  • Global Health Consultant | Writer | Speaker

    • Apr 2023 - Present
    • California, United States

    Advising companies how to develop and execute health and wellbeing strategies that will move the needle on runaway healthcare costs and genuinely improve employees’ health. Also advise on going global and better meeting employers’ needs for vendors offering health solutions. Through writing, spea...

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  WTW

  • United Kingdom
  • Financial Services
  • 700 & Above Employee

  • Insights & Solutions Leader, Health & Benefits (Europe, International)

    • Jan 2022 - Mar 2023

    In the newly restructured company I am still focused on "Beyond Brokerage" – solutions to expand our services beyond the basic insurance consulting. I work with our local H&B businesses in 50+ countries to adapt and develop our core solutions to the local market. This includes Employee Wellbeing, Analytics, Employee Experience and overall Benefits Management to help our clients understand better how to meet their business needs. Particularly enjoying working with innovative wellbeing companies offering point solutions to improve the health of employees and reduce healthcare costs.

  • Innovation & Service Development Leader (Health & Benefits, Non-North America)

    • Jul 2016 - Jan 2022

    I was part of the leadership team for the Health & Benefits (H&B) practice formed at the merger of Willis with Towers Watson. Our tag line in the market was We Do the Basics Well…….and Go Beyond! I was responsible for the “Going Beyond”. I identified existing services or new ideas in individual markets that could have global applicability and developed those ideas, incubated where necessary and rolled out around the world. I also facilitated the ongoing development of local and global H&B services beyond basic insured benefits brokerage to include services such as total health management, employee engagement and workforce analytics through training programs and sharing of best practices.I was also responsible for driving our technology vision for H&B through ensuring the different tools being developed are fully integrated and meet the needs of local and global clients and we can draw the most advanced analytics out of the data generated. Finally I work with the company’s Research team on thought leading research and intellectual capital that will further enhance our services and insight for our H&B clients around the world.

  • Director, Multinational Development

    • Jan 2011 - Jun 2016

    In this previous role I focused on innovation and strategy, developing new services and products for our multinational clients (across various business segments). One major focus was expanding our intellectual capital, tools and research in the area of global health & wellbeing, enabling clients to better define, develop and manage their global health strategies. I was also heavily involved in the setting up of our new Global Health and Group Benefits practice as we obtain local brokerage licenses around the world and hire a number of new senior practice leaders. This involves developing a lot of new processes, technology, and standardized deliverables and ensuring roll out around the world so that our clients enjoy a seamless consistent service wherever in the world they work with us. Another feature of this story is the setting up of a centralized support unit we call the Global Benefits Center. In two principal locations, Montevideo (Uruguay) and Manila (Philippines) to ensure almost 24/7 operations I developed an ongoing training program for all associates that starts with a two-week “global benefits bootcamp” and requires continual monitoring and addressing of the skills needed in the group by the business stakeholders as they expand the use of the Global Benefits Center. I continued to be heavily involved in the data and research we offer to our multinational clients. In particular Benefits Data Source (BDS), the deepest, most consistent database of employee benefits plan design available in the market today. I developed the global BDS platform back in 2005 to meet an ongoing need by our clients for market data that was detailed enough to have all the specific local country nuances but on a consistent global platform for ease of analysis and comparison. Available in just 30 countries 10 years ago BDS is now available in over 100 countries with over 10,000 participants worldwide!

  • Principal, International Consulting Group

    • 1998 - 2011

    Prior to becoming Towers Watson I led the International Consulting Group for the US West Region of Towers Perrin. I focused on helping clients to address their international human resource issues at the corporate level including the development of global Human Resource and Total Reward strategies, global benefits and compensation programs, as well as expatriate policies and international pension and risk benefit plans — all with the aim of assisting clients in becoming global organizations. I also advised clients on local health, benefits and compensation issues arising in locations outside the U.S. In many cases this assistance was in connection with M&A activity, both due diligence and integration activities for single country and multi-country deals. I also assisted clients with reviewing their global location strategies and selecting new sites to find the talent they needed to better support their business plans. I specialized in the high tech industry and worked with many of the world’s leading technology companies in a period of particular global expansion by Silicon Valley and the North West. I also worked with a range of other industries including financial services, retail, pharmaceutical, engineering and energy. I started my US career with Towers Perrin in the New York office but after two years of freezing winters headed west to California!

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  Barnett Waddingham

  • Leeds, United Kingdom

  • Senior Actuary

    • 1993 - 1998
    • Leeds, United Kingdom

    I started my professional career in the UK where I qualified as a pensions actuary with Barnett Waddingham. I worked in the Leeds office where I actually specialized in Directors Pension Schemes known as Small Self-Administered Schemes (SSAS’s) and Funded Unapproved Retirement Benefit Schemes (FU...

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  Access AfterHours

  • Perth, Australia

  • IT Technician

    • 1992 - 1993
    • Perth, Australia

    I spent a year living in Perth, Australia where I worked for a custom PC retailer. I built PC's to order after discussing with customers what their needs were. I was also dealing with suppliers in Taiwan for parts and moving the company into new multi-media solutions as CD-ROM drives started ...