Sarah Fearnley is a Client Relationship Manager for Equity Plan Services at J.P. Morgan Workplace Solutions. Sarah has 17+ years’ experience in share plans, focusing on broad-based plans globally and specialising in UK Share Incentive and Sharesave Plans. 

Sarah applies her long history in the share plan industry to support her clients with achieving their employee share ownership goals. 

Jennifer Thomas is currently Director, Global Equity Management at ServiceNow. There she is responsible for all things equity, including growing the team and undertaking some upcoming strategic projects to improve the employee equity experience! Before joining ServiceNow, she held positions as Head of Equity at Stripe and Director of Stock Services at Oracle. Prior to that, she held various roles on the Alphabet / Google Global Equity Management team, including nearly three years based in London! Jennifer spent the earlier part of her career in financial services, having worked in many different roles at both Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab. Jennifer has an Executive MBA from California State University, Northridge, and a BA in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. She serves in various capacities at several non-profits as well.

Andrea Kagan is Senior Project Manager, Stock Administration with NVIDIA Corporation and is based in the Bay Area. Andrea has close to than twenty five years of experience working with multi-jurisdictional tax issues facing internationally mobile employees and has specialized in equity compensation for the past twenty years, with a focus in recent years on implementing and leveraging technology solutions. Andrea has experience in the share plan industry from multiple perspectives. She has worked at stock issuer companies as part of the stock administration team; at a share plan administrator leading the tax and cross-border workstream for their proprietary information database; and at several of the Big 4 Accounting Firms consulting with companies to help manage employer and employee compliance obligations and cross-jurisdictional issues for equity awards. Andrea was fortunate enough to have worked in England for 3 years, resulting in a unique understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing mobile employees. She has published articles in both the US and the UK and is a frequent speaker at local and national industry conferences. Andrea is a Certified Equity Professional (CEP), IRS Enrolled Agent, and is a member of NASPP, and GEO.

Marlene Zobayan is a partner at Rutlen Associates LLC. She has over thirty years of international tax and benefits experience including global equity plans, mobile employee taxation, global compensation and benefits. Her clients range from start-ups to Fortune 10 companies. She provides a range of services including remote work policy, mobile employee policy, global equity plan design, mobility compliance, compliance reviews, assistance with local approvals and filings, communications, employer tax compliance advice and designing administrative processes; she is known for her expertise with mobile employee issues. 

Marlene has a Physics degree from Oxford University; she was a member of the U.K. Association of Tax Technicians when she practiced in the U.K. Marlene is a U.S. Enrolled Agent, and a Certified Equity Professional (“CEP”). She is a regular speaker and author on global stock plan, mobility and remote work issues; edits the Global Equity GPS book for the CEPI and authored the chapter on State Mobility in the Selected Issues For Equity Compensation book. Marlene is currently a member of the Curriculum Committee for CEPI.

Veerle Lerut is a counsel in the Tax Practice Group in the Brussels office. She joined Baker McKenzie in 2023. Before joining Baker McKenzie, Veerle worked as a lawyer, as the in-house legal tax advisor of a highly reputed Flemish University, in the advisory tax department of a Big Four firm and as an academical researcher.

Veerle advises on the national and international individual income tax and social security aspects of compensation & benefits granted to resident and non-resident individuals, including the structuring of cross-border employment situations and transfers of employees and directors. Veerle has a specific focus on equity based compensation and cross-border government services.

Sarah joined the Employee Incentives Team of CMS as an Of Counsel in 2019. Sarah has over 20 years’ experience in dealing with all aspects of employee incentives and employee share schemes, from a legal, tax and reward perspective. She works with a broad spectrum of clients, ranging from FTSE 100 companies to private companies and start-ups.

Sarah also assists global groups with the extension of their share plan arrangements into multiple jurisdictions and cross-border employee taxation questions.

Elliot is Associate Director, Relationship Management at Computershare and has over eight years of experience in the share plans industry. He holds a Bachelor of Business Studies and Finance degree as well as a Certificate in Employee Share Plans (Cert. ESP), and he is also a member of the Global Equity Organisation UK Chapter.

Mark Higgins is responsible for WPP’s share plans and supporting executive compensation strategy within the global people team.  Mark leads on all aspects of running share plans, including governance and design, operational effectiveness, and communications; helping the c.60,000 or so WPP people in c.70 countries participating in WPP’s plans recognise and realise value from them.

Before joining WPP, Mark managed share plans for Vodafone, where a highlight was leading employees through the world’s largest ever return of value to shareholders.  Prior to that, Mark spent over 10 years in roles with a bank and a firm of stockbrokers, supporting share plans for over 50 FTSE and global companies including Axa, Diageo, Michelin, Pearson, and Unilever.

Mark is a regular speaker at share plan events and has been a member of the UK Chapter team for over five years.

Outside work, Mark enjoys cultural and sporting events with his three children, as well as serving as club secretary, coach, and occasional player for his local cricket club.

Vanda started her career at Deloitte Hungary, in Global Employer Services, focusing on mobile employee taxation, before moving to London in 2016 joining Deloitte’s Incentives & Rewards team where her journey in the share plans world begun.

She advised many multinational companies on designing, implementing, and operating global incentive plans which is attractive to employees, practical to manage and good value for the company’s shareholders.

In January 2022, Vanda joined Nokia where she currently works as a Senior Equity Program Manager. She is responsible for running Nokia’s global long-term incentive plan and all employee share purchase plan across more than 90 jurisdictions as well as leading the Equity Team.

Vanda has acquired an extensive legal and tax technical knowledge in relation to equity income and cross-border employee taxation while also working together with multiple stakeholders, including, HR, payroll, finance, legal and reward specialist.

She successfully completed Tapestry’s Certificate in Employee Share Plans course accredited by the Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland (CGIUKI) and presented at multiple industry events on equity compensation related topics.

In her spare time she loves traveling and live music events or playing tennis.

Lewis Dulley is an Associate at Tapestry Compliance, an award-winning UK law firm specialising in global equity incentives. Lewis advises on all aspects of global incentive plans, including the design, drafting, implementation and operation of executive and employee incentive plans. 

Lewis advises a number of Tapestry’s largest clients on their legal, tax and governance requirements in respect of their incentive plans and tax-qualified arrangements. Lewis has also twice been published in The Law Reviews: The Executive Remuneration Review, which outlines the regulatory framework for executive remuneration in the EU.