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SpinVox is a convergent messaging solution provider that converts voicemail into text including SMS, email and web-based text capability. Founded in 2003, SpinVox has become the global leader in ‘voice-to-content’ messaging operating on 5 continents in 6 languages and through its lifetime employed over 350 people in 10 countries delivering services to 14 major carriers. When Jeff Wellstead was hired by Christina Domecq, CEO of SpinVox, there were only 50 developers and operations employees crammed into a boathouse along the Thames River in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
Jeff’s remit, according to Christina, was to take SpinVox and help first to establish a global market selling Voice-to-Text technology into as many major telecommunications carriers as possible, and then to own that market as long as possible. As the Global Head of Human Resources, Jeff’s role was to first establish a high standard of internal HR infrastructure within a fast growing business where none had existed previously. Within his first six months, Jeff had quickly addressed all of the legal and compliance related elements of HR and had done a deep dive into ensuring dramatically more effective employee branding, recruitment, on-boarding, performance measurement, compensation schemes, employee engagement and leadership/management development. Jeff’s view was that by linking the very aggressive quarterly company targets to team and individual achievement, SpinVox could create a very powerful re-enforcement link through the performance measurement and reward process to intimately link desired behaviour with positive recognition.
Jeff also led opening offices in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, South Africa, Australia, Latin America, the USA and Canada and hiring staff for each country. He was personally responsible for attracting highly regarded executives from the Telco and high tech FTSE and Fortune 250 to come on board this fledgling organisation for an incredible adventure. In hiring the Executive Board, Country Managers, department heads and the Voice Recognition Development Team (Cambridge office), Jeff provided all the key members of staff to drive critical goals to fruition and allow SpinVox to continue selling and delivering at the pace set by Christina Domecq and her co-founder, Daniel Doulton.
"As COO, I manage the largest employee population for SpinVox. Jeff performed a central role in helping me manage the performance of my people in giving me the measurement tools, advice and insight necessary to keep my group in top form. His enthusiasm and generosity of spirit showed through in his dealings with difficult situations. He’s not your average HR executive in that his approach always balanced both the commercial business as well as the staff’s interest. I would highly recommend Jeff to organisations who value their employees as critical assets.” September 13, 2009.
"It’s often said that you can’t create a culture in a company, that it happens organically. People who say that haven’t met Jeff. Simply put, Jeff not only created the culture at SpinVox but was the embodiment of it. His knack for finding and acquiring top talent was astounding and his ability to motivate the entire company to reach for the impossible was second to none. Jeff is a true leader in every sense and any organization who has a chance to have him will be transformed immediately.” September 29, 2009.
"Jeff is a seasoned HR professional with high intellectual capacity. His thought leadership and ability to distil complexity rapidly enables Jeff to challenge the team in viewing issues from multiple vantage points. His comfort in taking the "unpopular position" for the betterment of the team is a huge asset. Jeff has a strong understanding of all functional skill profiles and the cultural hurdles associated with operating a global business. Jeff operates at high speed and his energy is infectious.” June 18, 2008.
MessageLabs is an innovative leader in cloud-based email protection capability, utilizing artificial intelligence to effectively eliminate virus, spam and illicit material in 99% of its subscriber base globally. It was purchased by Symantec in 2008 for over $700 million. Jeff was hired to manage global human resources at the Group level, overseeing both Star Technology and MessageLabs located in Gloucester, UK. MessageLabs & Star Technology employed approximately 600 people. Several major projects were undertaken to improve employee engagement and the linkage between performance measurement and reward, as well as in recruitment and HR team transformation and rebranding.
Jeff’s first order of business was to transform the human resources team into a proper business consultancy wherein HR business partners live and work physically with the business leaders and see the world from their eyes, not simply from an HR perspective. After extensive efforts in training, communications and getting directly involved in the business’s everyday life, the HR team became a business critical member of MessageLabs.
Jeff also brought in several key infrastructure changes by hiring a new recruitment outsourcing team wherein he not only improved time to hire but also reduced recruitment costs by £400,000 annually. Jeff also built a delivered a new web-based, global performance management system branded ‘Exceed’ that created linkage between quarterly business targets, team and individual achievement. Perhaps most importantly, employee development planning was added on the back of every quarterly review as training became the cornerstone of MessageLabs’ corporate culture. Jeff hired for and created a corporate training team, built a learning management system and made the linkage between performance reviews and learning tightly intertwined. Creating a culture of performance, results and learning for MessageLabs Group was paramount to their success in leading the anti-virus industry as technological advances are endless and the challenges to success significant.
Finally, the other key achievement of Jeff’s tenure was the creation of a compensation management approach that embraced external benchmarking, ensured an internal job and pay structure that was fair and consistent and addressed all aspects of the business including sales, development, marketing and consultancy such that employees felt motivated both by recognition and remuneration.
Jeff was also intimately involved in sourcing and hiring MessageLabs CEO, Adrian Chamberlain back in 2005. Many of Jeff’s undertakings provided maturity in the Employee Experience that helped pave the way for the company’s acquisition by Symantec in November 2008. Jeff reported into several constituent groups including both group company CEO’s and led a group of 14 HR professionals globally.
"Jeff transformed our HR team from an administrative support organisation to a key differentiator that improved our business performance. He helped us significantly develop our existing team's capabilities and recruit the right new talent to grow our business.” April 20, 2006.
PeopleSoft, Inc. was a company that provided human resource management systems (HRMS) and customer relationship management (CRM) software, as well as software solutions for manufacturing, financials, enterprise performance management, and student administration to large corporations, governments, and organizations. It existed as an independent corporation until its acquisition by Oracle Corporation in 2005.The PeopleSoft name and product line are now marketed by Oracle.
Jeff was recruited to manage and lead the human resources effort for the PeopleSoft Consulting Group – which at the time numbered about 3,000 in several countries around the world. The group was primarily a ‘break-fix’ team focused on providing support for software installations and upgrades to the Big 4 consultancies and business partners certified by PeopleSoft. Under the leadership of Michael Gregoire, now CEO at Taleo, Jeff carried out a massive transformation process wherein the consulting group would become a certified consultancy capable of installing and delivering the promise of PeopleSoft ERP to their customers directly versus going through business partners. Jeff was responsible for driving the conversion of the global employee base through a significant change management exercise. Working in a matrix reporting and communications network, Jeff worked with all the global HR and Consulting leaders whilst pulling significantly from internal support functions such as Training and Development to create a highly effective certification process for all 3,000 employees worldwide. Jeff worked to develop role-based curriculum, a web-based learning management system and a competency-based approach to management and leadership training that was adopted by all of PeopleSoft.
Once the Consulting group became a revenue-producing entity successfully and driving fully 30% of the overall revenue of PeopleSoft, Jeff was promoted to run all of training and development for the global employee base. Leading the entire training and development effort, Jeff worked with technology leaders to radically increase the volume of and infrastructure for launching at least 200 new technical and non-technical training courses through e-learning – saving the Consulting practice over $3 million annually on travel cost reductions and increasing billable fee-based activity for employees.
Jeff managed a team of 30 training and curriculum development professionals, with 5 direct reports located remotely throughout the world.
"I've worked with numerous HR executives and find Jeff to be one of the best. His knowledge of rules and regulations and his understanding of the business are superb. His creative solutions and positive attitude are refreshing. Unlike many of his peers, I looked forward to my interactions with Jeff. He is a true business partner.” April 21, 2006.
"Jeff's energy, optimism, innovation and thorough knowledge of employee development were of great benefit to me as a leader of PeopleSoft consulting delivery organization. Jeff was the key driver in creating tangible development plans and content that our professionals embraced and relied upon.” May 22, 2006.
"Jeff led the people development initiative that drove a new line of business, with entirely new competencies required, a new way of thinking, and indeed, a new way of working. He made it happen quickly, with collaboration of all the key stakeholders, effectively and in a way that was sustainable over time. Not only is Jeff fun to work with, he is a smart, inquisitive and high-energy leader.” June 29, 2006.
HP Enterprise Services is a global business and technology services company, previously known as Electronic Data Systems (EDS), headquartered in Plano, Texas that defined the outsourcing business when it was established in 1962 by Ross Perot. General Motors acquired the company in 1984, spun it off again as an independent company in 1996, and became an EDS client.
Jeff was recruited to serve as chief human resource executive for financial services technology solutions group. This group was 200 employees strong and located in New York City serving the investment banking community with bespoke trading system creation. In his initial role, Jeff managed all hiring, compensation and outsourcing/on-boarding activity for 200 employees and led outsourcing acquisitions and on-boarding of over 300 IT employees from the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). This was a 10-year contract work over $2 billion to EDS revenue stream.
Jeff led change management exercises for group acquisitions and was promoted to cover all human resource activity for entire Northeast region of 10,000 EDS employees within 12 months of starting. In this role, Jeff earned promotion in 1999 for outstanding performance to lead 8 direct reports and 65 employees covering recruiting, employee relations, account generalist activity, communications and training professionals.
Jeff structured and delivered a professional services unit aimed at addressing financial services trade system delivery. He delivered a new ranking and rating performance system used by the group CEO to manage succession planning. Jeff also created 360-degree leadership development program in-house, coached and counselled managers/leaders on all manner of organizational development issues and lead several initiatives to increase leadership effectiveness throughout GFMG organization.
During his tenure there, Jeff earned the distinction of being one of EDS’ ‘Best HR Professionals.’
"Jeff is an outstanding HR professional with a unique and powerful combination of skills. He supported me during our tenure at EDS in the recruiting of talented technical professionals to support our aggressive growth in financial services consulting. He also provided seasoned guidance and mentoring on HR and personnel development related matters. As part of the larger EDS we had to comply with complex HR programs and policies, but also adapt those to the unique needs of our business unit. Jeff was adept at doing this by custom tailoring compensation, performance, and personal development programs to suit our needs while still satisfying those of corporate. Jeff is a powerful and prolific communicator, and extremely results focused. I experienced first-hand how he would use his interpersonal skills, sense of humor, and active listening to navigate the most complex and sensitive of personnel related matters. This combined with his business acumen and initiative make him a truly unique professional in the HR community. It would be an honor to work with Jeff again and without hesitation I would recommend him to any firm considering his services or employment.” September 8, 2009.