This rise in global mobility – moving overseas for work as companies expand across international borders – goes hand-in-hand with the globalisation of trade. From her first office in northern Italy, Wales-raised Ann Ellis has been in the vanguard as the world’s economies become increasingly interconnected.Ann and her colleagues have since 1996 built a successful business providing global business solutions and consultancy to some of the world’s best-known brands and their remote and mobile workforces.

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Relocate’s Think Women workshop and lunch will be held on 6 March at the Institute of Directors, London as part of the celebrations for International Women’s Day. Join us to hear from, and network with, inspiring women and men. Support women and girls to progress in international careers. 

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Mauve’s immigration, HR, tax, payroll and value-added services enable entrepreneurs, businesses and NGOs operating globally to achieve their missions and grow.Combining country-specific know-how with strategic partnerships, and a passion and genuine curiosity about people and new places, Ann and her team have established a network of companies across more than 70 countries (and counting) to help drive global trade.Together, they are bringing quality, compliance, technology and the human touch to cross-border enterprise, in-country presence, HR and global mobility teams in more than 150 countries.

Moving with the times at Mauve

Established in 1996, Mauve initially expanded alongside telecommunications companies like Ericsson, which has its global HQ in Sweden, and Finland’s Nokia. Mauve’s clients today cover a spectrum of industry, charitable and education sectors, and roles – from digger operatives to helicopter maintenance engineers.“In the early days, I used to go out myself and set up companies,” says Ann, as she shares her experiences as inspiration to others. “I learned an awful lot from doing it myself, then passing that on to our clients about what to do and what not to do.” Looking through the prism of Mauve, it’s clear how this hands-on approach has grown. Its in-country experts delineate, manage and administer multifaceted legislative, tax and employment frameworks in every continent. 

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Relocate’s Think Women workshop and lunch will be held on 6 March at the Institute of Directors, London as part of the celebrations for International Women’s Day. Join us to hear from, and network with, inspiring women and men. Support women and girls to progress in international careers. 

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Mauve is also helping clients to address the complex talent, HR and mobility challenges that are making HR and global mobility teams’ remits ever-more demanding.With its suite of HR services, including employment law, visas and immigration, “Mauve can employ the talent in countries where you can’t hire them yourself,” says Ann. “It’s one of the main services we offer.”Agile solutions for agile organisationsAs an employer of record, Mauve’s services mean a company or organisation can employ a local person or expat in the country where they might need personnel on the ground. “We can take on the role of employer, employ the person on their behalf and make sure that person is working legally in the country.“For example, we would give the worker a contract of employment which complies with local labour laws and register them on our local payroll. The company would then instruct them on the day-to-day tasks of their role. We work side by side with clients so that they don’t have to worry about the compliance and the legal side of the employment.“The talent people need isn’t always in the country they want to expand into, which is why these services are very useful to them.”

Global insight

While not a recruitment agency, Mauve does have an inside track on salaries and employer costs through its in-country partnerships and international research department. This enables HR teams to make fully informed and compliant decisions based on reliable pay and benefits, tax and social security data. “We can offer any of the services we provide in isolation. For example, we often get queries from companies that don’t often have hundreds of workers, say 10 or 20, and they need payroll services. We provide payroll calculations and pay the relevant taxes and social security to the local authorities.“The same with immigration. We can offer a company immigration services if they have employees employed in different countries – especially if they may be moving workers from one country to the other.“We can advise expatriate workers and business travellers on the visas they require, and also on the tax liabilities where people are going backwards and forwards. They might find that even if they are only in-country for a short period of time during a fiscal year, they still have local tax liabilities.”“We often advise on HR issues as well. People say ‘we need an employment handbook for this country – can you prepare us one?’ They may also have particular issues that are quite unusual. But we always like to pride ourselves that we can offer a bespoke service that fits what they need.”

Flexibility

Mauve’s flexible, client-centred approach extends to its own employees – and has paid off equally well. Many have been with the company since the early days.“I know what it’s like to work and have small children,” says Ann. “Even when they get older, you are like a taxi driver!“The reason I think we have lots of people who stay with us a long time is because we’ve always been a company that has been very flexible – even before flexibility was a thing. Because we are spread out all over the world, this helps too with fitting family and work commitments around time differences. We are happy to be flexible.”Asked if Mauve has seen any increase in women transferring overseas – often a vital stepping-stone into international leadership roles and therefore vital to balancing gender pay gaps – Ann says, “unfortunately this isn’t something I’ve noticed particularly from what we are doing.”However, through her involvement in global networks and events like Relocate Global’s International Women’s Day lunch, where she is a speaker, and the Think Women year-round community, Ann is blazing a trail for women in international business.

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Relocate’s Think Women lunch will be held on 6 March at the Institute of Directors, London as part of the celebrations for International Women’s Day. Hear from, and network with, inspiring women and men. Support women and girls to progress in international careers. Tickets cost £80 (+VAT) to include workshop and lunch with keynote speaker.

Similar Think Women events will be held in EMEA, APAC and the Americas later in the year and virtually. Contact us at events@relocatemagazine.com to find out how you can be involved in your area. 

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