Seminar Program

With experts from Fragomen, Gibney, Anthony & Flaherty and Pro-Link Global.

What are the current trends in immigration compliance around the world?  Which governments are becoming increasingly stricter regarding enforcement?  Join our panel of experts to learn everything you need to know about conducting business and complying with immigration law.

With experts from:
ACS International Schools
Bennett Schools
School Choice International
TASIS The American School in England

Choosing an international school can be a make or break decision for any expatriate assignment.  But how do you select the school that best fits your assignees requirements?

This is a unique opportunity to hear leading educators discuss the practicalities and pitfalls of international schooling.

Mark Rabe, VP Business Development, Equus Software

In many companies, global mobility is one of the last functions to automate their business processes.   This session will explore why, when and how a company should take the plunge into software-driven business automation.

Debra Frost, Vice President, Client Services
Cartus
William Sheridan, Vice President, National Foreign Trade Council

For more than a decade, Cartus’ comprehensive benchmark surveys of global mobility have provided insights into key aspects of international assignment and related activity including:

• Demographics and global assignment activity,
• Assignment policy components and their trending, and
• “Hot Topic” areas that explore current mobility challenges.

Our session will focus on the key findings of our recently completed 2012 survey, conducted in association with the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC),  providing participants with information on:

• Assignment types, and volume trends
• Geographic trends in destinations and the challenges they pose; and
• The ways companies are balancing cost control against the need to support global expansion.

The presentation will combine up-to-the-minute insights that come from the input from leading relocation managers and trending that provides a concrete basis for evaluating the ways the international assignment field is developing

Beth Penfold, Senior Manager, International Expatriate Services, Grant Thornton
Katrina Haynes, Manager, International Expatriate Services, Grant Thornton

As the point person for your company’s international assignees, you sometimes encounter issues that are outside your area of expertise.   U.S. tax reporting requirements for foreign financial assets may be one of these issues.  The rules are becoming more complex and also apply to an increasing number of your employees.  We will review case studies with common scenarios to help you guide your assignees:

1. U.S. citizens and residents are exposed to new investment opportunities while on foreign assignment.  Unfortunately, many of these investments were not developed for U.S. taxpayers.  Just locating the information needed to comply with U.S. tax reporting can be a daunting task.  

Non-U.S. citizens coming to the U.S. for long term assignments find there are extensive U.S. reporting requirements for some of the investments they may have held for years prior to arriving in the U.S. 

Dean Foster, President and founder, DFA Intercultural Global Solutions

With the average "cost" of an international assignment at approximately US$1 million, accurately measuring and insuring a return on this investment is critical. This presentation explores how a strategic approach to intercultural support insures the development of the global competencies essential for successful 21st century organizations, and must be so much more than just a dot.com event.

Patrick Jurgens, CPA – Director of Tax, AIRINC

A company’s first international assignment is a daunting event.  Overseas assignments can be complex and expensive, and they often involve key talent with significant responsibilities that are crucial to achieving a company’s business objectives.

A typical scenario is that someone from senior management informs you, the human resources manager, that the decision has been made to expand the business globally.  For the first time, an employee is going to be sent on an international assignment.  However, you have never relocated an employee beyond the boundaries of the United States, you are facing budget constraints, and the company does not have the expertise in-house to initiate and manage the assignment process.  You have heard that international assignments are expensive, and someone has warned you that tax compliance and tax costs can be a headache.  

Where do you start?  What do you need to consider?  How do you respond to management’s request?

This session will focus on the key areas that a company must consider:

• Creating an assignment package
• Calculating the estimated cost of the assignment
• Compensation
• Compliance
• Relocation

Austin Fragomen, Managing Partner, Fragomen, Del Ray, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP

As businesses continue to be increasingly global, needing to move employees worldwide as efficiently as possible, governments have an increasing interest in enforcing immigration compliance. As a result it is more important that ever that organizations are aware of immigration trends globally.  This session will cover recent trends seen throughout the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions and provide information to help organizations to remain compliant with the immigration laws.

Diane McGreal, Director Berlitz Global Leadership Training, Americas Region

Is Cross Cultural Training really worth it?  It can be if you make a good choice and do your homework when selecting a cross cultural training provider.   This seminar will outline key concerns you should consider to insure that you get what you are paying for and that your assignees are gaining valuable information from reliable resources which will result in being prepared to live and work in a new culture. 

Join me as we examine important issues when selecting a cross cultural provider:

• Trainers
• Program Content
• Assessments
• Cultural Model
• On-going support

Glen Collins, Senior Manager, KPMG International Executive Services (IES)

This session will focus on leading industry trends showing a greater alignment of global mobility professionals to talent management. It will include a case study demonstrating a recent global mobility transformation project in which KPMG served as a key strategic business advisor to a client managing change within the organization. The initiative included policy benchmarking and development, streamlining global mobility processes and procedures, supporting compliance and enhancing overall employee service delivery.

Frank Patitucci, CEO, NuCompass Mobility

The expansion of global markets has caused changes in the mobility industry that could not have been predicted a few years ago.  At the same time, technology has advanced in ways that no one would have imagined. Yet the application of new technologies in the mobility industry has lagged.  Join Frank Patitucci, CEO of NuCompass Mobility Services, for an examination of how emerging technologies will change the way global assignees conduct their moves, empower corporations to more effectively manage their global mobility programs, and change the service delivery models that will support the next generation of global mobility.

Alain Verstandig, President and Denise Michelle Starrett, Senior Consultant NET EXPAT Inc

Surveys trends indicate dual career issues will continue to be a barrier to mobility. Articles highlight the plight of the expatriate partner. Even when we recognize the challenges, we still need to define a strong value proposition if we are to include spousal assistance before and during (even at the end of) international assignments.
How do multinational corporations manage to implement cost effective and valued support services to expatriated spouses?
In this session, participants will

• Discover the latest trends and best practices of over 200 multinational corporations
• Explore a variety of services available to support expatriate partners and the pros and cons of implementing the different options

Learn about innovative ways to address career continuation expectations of partners relocating to countries where their potential to work might be limited

Brian Friedman, Founder & CEO, The Forum for Expatriate Management

Brian will present the results of a major new survey on Global Mobility performance metrics, organizational structure and vendor benchmarking.   FEM will provide free copies of “Managing the Global Mobility Function” to participants. This 70 page plus research report normally costs $1,900 and contains data from over 300 corporates and over 130 service providers.

Michael Cadden, Managing Director, Living Abroad, LLC

Looking just three years ahead is a pretty short horizon; just the same distance as the year 2009 is from today. In the recent past we experienced some profound technology shifts, such as a million mobile apps and cloud computing, and these will certainly continue. But in the next couple of years we will add 12 million 22 year-olds to the workforce in the USA alone. Demographics and Technology combined make a volatile mix. Not only that, countries around the globe will be using the same technologies to tighten their borders, leading to ‘border wars’ between global companies and where they need to be to prosper.