James Mead

I have just left BlackRock after 25 years managing large scale operational services for our staff and clients. With the challenges of remote working, return to office, the great transition to self-service and greater technology enablement I feel like my experience would lend itself well to a new opportunity at a growing organisation. 

My areas of strength are business development where I adapted a service that saw a 300% increase in demand and grew a team by 125% within the world’s largest asset manager - changing the behaviours of 22,000 staff, and how they communicated to their clients. Vendor and stakeholder relationships from multi-million dollar contracts to GEC and president of BlackRock, relationships are essential to successful operations and performance. Changing a service model with a white glove approach and technology enablement as my clients became more familiar with technology, coupled with this enabling communication technology and operations at a new global headquarters in NYC at the start of 2023. 

Operational management: Running a high-performance global service with white glove SLAs, defined SOPs, strategy, and agile business models to respond to business demand. Requiring strong relationships and expense management with key vendors implementing multi-year staffing contracts (worth $12m), technology and platforms (incl. $2m streaming contract), and services - including a $1m Media Asset Management (MAM) platform to retain and archive data. 

Business collaboration with agility and growth: Working with our UK stakeholders to win key mandates with British Airways (£21.5bn) and Royal Mail (£8.8bn) combining a strong culture of success. 

Track record evolving how 22,000 staff communicated with each other and their clients. From managing video conference calls, accelerated hiring, increased client communications and business wins, C-suite communication support and coaching, and transitioning platform support to accommodate infrastructure changes. 

Elevated services and technology enablement: Contributed to BlackRock’s successful move into a new global headquarters in NYC at the start of 2023. Responsible for the tiered technology guidance with legacy and new sites, elevated technology enablement including self-service support, a brand-new theatre style auditorium with adjoining TV and webcast studios, wayfinding via digital signage, and added experienced staffing resources. 

Vendor and stakeholder relationships: Experienced relationship builder at all levels and from all channels of a business from junior enterprise services to the C-suite and president of BlackRock. Responsibility with multi-million-dollar contracts, vendor selection, budget control, RFPs, and their performance. 

Hardware / platform experience: Variety of streaming/production hardware workflows including 2x TV Studio builds, BrightTalk, TalkPoint (GlobalMeet), Telestream. 

South East Essex College of Arts & Technology  
BTEC First Diploma (Design), BTEC National Diploma (Graphic Design)

Multiple leadership development courses, incl. emerging high potential, PROPEL, a mentor & mentee