In over eight years at Deloitte and in three countries, I have been lucky enough to try out a lot in Global Employer Services.

Hey Michael - welcome back! You have returned to Deloitte after a one-year period at another company. Now you are a Senior Manager in the Tax & Legal department. What are your specific tasks there?
Thank you, I’m excited to be back! I work in our Global Employer Services (GES) service line and help to lead the Global Coordination Office (GCO) for a large German multinational organization. In GES, we support our clients in all areas of their global mobility programs as their employees move around the world, be it secondments, business trips, remote work or any other cross-border activities. In doing so, we work with the other Deloitte offices to provide tax, immigration, social security, and other services to help both clients and their employees to stay compliant.

Our GCO team coordinates the delivery of these services with the other Deloitte member firms around the world for this specific client, who operates in over 90 countries. Each year several thousands of their employees cross the borders of these countries to travel, move, and work abroad. We act as the first point of contact for both the Deloitte offices and the client on all mobility matters. It is partly project management, as we make sure the services are delivered smoothly and correctly, and partly product management, as we develop new methods for fulfilling these tasks in the future. So, it’s never boring!  

We also organize and deliver tax advisory services and help our client understand new tax developments, as tax legislation is constantly evolving and might affect our client´s business.

While being with Deloitte for the first time, you worked in Ohio and then in Prague. How did these activities abroad come about?
After completing my Master’s degree, I started working for Deloitte in Cincinnati, Ohio, near to where I grew up in the US. About three years into my career, I had been a part of the GES team from the beginning, working with expats moving to and from the US piqued my interest to try an assignment myself. Around the same time, the team in Prague happened to be looking for someone for a long-term assignment to support them and share best practices between our member firms. When the opportunity came up, I knew I should not miss the chance, so I applied for the position and was very lucky to get it. 

This first assignment at Deloitte in Prague completely changed my life. After these three years, when my time there was coming to an end, I wasn’t quite ready to move back to the US and was very keen to move to Berlin, where I had visited several times and felt a connection to immediately. Thanks to the partner in Prague, I was put in touch with the German GES leadership, and we were able to find an opportunity for me to support the German practice as they were setting up a team to advise on the Posted Workers Directive.

What did you do after leaving Deloitte in 2021?
After leaving Deloitte, I started as a Global Mobility Manager at a fin-tech start-up that was experiencing hypergrowth and wanted to expand its global mobility program with more technical expertise.

How can we imagine the work of a Global Mobility Manager and how does it differ from your current activities? 
During the year I was with the other company, my role changed significantly over and over again, depending on the business needs. Primarily, I focused on supporting a team and mobility program that relocated employees from around the world to the company’s tech hubs, ensuring that these employees remained compliant with immigration regulations once they had been relocated. I managed vendors, worked on process improvements, and advised managers on mobility issues and strategy. 

I would say that the biggest difference between my previous and current job is that at Deloitte you are the expert giving advice and explaining the implications of certain laws and situations, whereas in an industry company, you are the person who has to decide what the organization should do with that advice. Each company and job have their beautiful and their difficult sides, but it was certainly a change for me when I joined the other organization.

What made you choose Deloitte as an employer again?
The strategy of the business, where I had previously worked at, had changed and so did the mobility program and my role, as these programs should always be designed and delivered in the interest of broader business goals. With this shift in strategy, I started to think about my long-term career goals and at which company I could see myself growing most, both in terms of expertise in tax and mobility, but also in terms of leadership and new challenges. Then, in fall of 2022, Marcus Krohn (GES serviceline leader for Germany), who I had worked with during my first time at Deloitte Germany, reached out to me to let me know about this new GES client Deloitte had won and the opportunity to help build and lead the GCO for one of the largest mobility programs in the world. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, as I knew it would push me to grow in both aspects I was looking for: technical know-how and leadership skills at the same time – and I was not disappointed. 

What advice can you give to applicants who are interested in your field of work? 
My advice to anyone interested in aspects of tax and/or global mobility is to say “Yes” when someone offers you the opportunity to try out something new. What has made my career so rewarding so far is the opportunity to learn and try so many things. In over eight years at Deloitte and in three countries, I have been lucky enough to try out a lot in GES, which has helped me to expand my technical knowledge, of course, but also to meet new people and to see different ways of working.

You want to learn more about career opportunities in our tax department? Then feel free to visit our careers website!