Steve Howlett Email and Phone Number

I lead end-to-end People Operations service delivery across 70+ countries, serving 40,000+ employees, thorugh an organization of ~350 team members, based in regional centre and country site locations, and third party partners.

I built and led the Global People Operations Separation Management Office to transition from a shared services framework to business unit target operating models as part of the wider GE plan to form three industry-leading, global public companies focused on the growth sectors of aviation, healthcare, and energy. I partnered closely with the client business units and enabling functions, leveraging current state design/processes to develop and implement future organization designs/delivery structures, the overall change program approach and employee information and consultation process content. In parallel, I continued to lead regional EMEA Programs & Deployment activities.

In this role, I led People Operations' Global Change Management activities, as part of which I led the implementation of a new operating model for the Global HR Shared Services organization, which supported 200K employees across 122 countries. This included researching different target operating model options, both insourced and outsourced, in close partnership with the client business units, working closely with the Labour & Employment Team on the employee information and consultation processes, and full delivery execution. In addition, I led GE's participation in an industry global council of peer company HR Shared Service leaders, sharing best practices. In the EMEA part of my role, I led a team which drove regional strategic change, product deployment, service excellence and channel strategy initiatives.

I led a team delivering major HR strategic and change initiatives across Payroll and Benefits and HR Operations. Areas of focus included organization restructuring aligned to business portfolio changes, acquisition integration, dispositions, payroll implementations, work consolidation/migration to regional centres, new strategic vendor deployments, channel efficiency, service quality, and Workday implementation initiatives.

As part of the business leadership team, I was responsible for establishing a cross-functional program structure to implement our portfolio disposal strategy. We executed asset sales from post-deal close to end of transitional services phase with buyers.

I led a team whose scope covered a broad range of Operations activities, and included:- Direct/Indirect Sourcing activities including budget management, supplier relationships and contract management, ongoing policy implementation and compliance management.- Buildings/Facilities management covering multiple UK and some European sites.- Business Excellence delivering major business projects and running project management office.- Business continuity and crisis management.

In this role, I was a member of GE's global network of c.600 Ombudspersons who play a vital role serving as a mechanism for individuals to ask questions and report integrity concerns without fear of retaliation. I led a team of 4 colleagues, covering 4 main UK sites and 8 European locations.

I was a member of the core leadership team of an innovative project that set up new bank within GE Capital which ultimately covered activities in the UK and a number of European countries. Initially, I led the regulatory readiness study, operating model design and build budget for the new bank, then moved on to contribute from this key elements of the regulatory licence application. Finally, I built a team that developed and implemented the strategy for a new deposits product, including the negotiation of a fully-outsourced operations service provision from a third party provider.

In this role, I led a business restructuring program at a time when GE Capital UK was consolidating business activities across 5 different product lines. Separately, and in parallel, I implemented a cross-functional customer service improvement program. At the time, I was based in Manchester, where I was also site leader with overall responsibility for c.300 staff.

In this role, I was part of the European HQ team, and partnered with local business teams on integration of external business acquisitions, and business consolidation activities. Another element of this role was to extend our geographical coverage beyond our own operations, and here I developed a commercial partnership with a major leasing/rental company to be able to serve customers in countries where we did not have a presence.

I implemented an improvement program and redesigned the financial crime prevention organization to meet business and regulatory requirements.

At a time of major regulator-led industry change, I developed the bank's strategic response for its future positioning in the payments market. I represented the bank on European and domestic industry bodies at board level in governance and infrastructure projects.

I led a team responsible for the bank's marketing lead generation, database management and campaign activity. In parallel, I researched and developed a concept for a new multi-product retail branch which was piloted in the bank's HQ branch.

I led a number of transformation projects in the financial services sector, working with major clearing banks and an internet start-up bank, as well as participating in an e-commerce study for a major travel company.

I set up and led the deal underwriting team at a time of significant organic growth in the private label credit card and sales finance portfolios.