Meet a WEXer: Bonnie MacArthur

The growth and transformation of WEX Europe has been a common thread in Bonnie MacArthur’s story since she joined us as a customer service manager in January, 2015. She now holds the position of manager of European client operations – and the differences in those titles are more than just semantics.

“WEX Europe was considered a bit of a startup when I first joined the company, with WEX just starting to put its stamp on the UK company it acquired to develop a European presence,” remembers Bonnie. “In the past three years, my team and I have been largely focused on fine-tuning our client base – retiring customers with products we no longer offer and ramping up support for corporate clients of our virtual payments products and services.”

German Opens Career Doors

A career in payments was not on the radar for Bonnie when she graduated from university, where she studied German and hospitality management. She set her sights on moving to London to start her career, and her German language skills were the entrée to a job at an international derivatives trading firm. There, she worked her way up to a management position in client services – an experience that ultimately landed her at WEX Europe.

During her early days at WEX Europe, Bonnie managed a team of four customer service reps and an account manager. The skill set of her team has evolved with the company, and today she oversees three account managers and two implementation managers. While the number of people on her team has remained steady, Bonnie says the shift in focus has been dramatic.

“Account managers with a strong understanding of the business provide proactive support to our virtual payments clients,” says Bonnie. “Implementation managers work to onboard new clients, then hand them off to our account managers and relationship managers for ongoing service. This close connection with our clients means my team collaborates regularly with our relationship managers and commercial sales team.”

That collaboration will continue to be a focus as Bonnie and her team prepare for the new opportunities that come with WEX Europe’s expansion this year to cover a total of 13 markets. She notes that language is a major consideration as the company looks at new countries, with her team currently conversant in Italian, Spanish, French, and German. “Optimizing the language support that my account and implementation managers can provide will be a key focus for me as we onboard clients from new markets,” Bonnie says.

Part of an International Team

Bonnie’s work also puts her in regular contact with her US virtual payments colleagues, as WEX Europe taps resources and aligns itself more closely with the credit platform and process being used by our US team. This means she has regular calls and WebEx meetings with US colleagues, along with the chance to meet people in person during trips to our annual sales meeting and Maine headquarters. She notes that having met WEXers in the US makes it much easier for her to pick up the phone and call them as part of her daily work.

“This is a really exciting time for us at WEX Europe. We’ve laid a foundation that allows us to work with large companies, and everyone wants to see the business perform well operationally and commercially,” says Bonnie. “We’ve still got a lot to do, and I’m eager to help the team and company advance to a larger position in Europe.”

The icing on the cake for Bonnie and her colleagues has been their recent move to our new WEX Europe headquarters, located in the heart of London’s historic business district. Bonnie says the office is “a brilliant location, both socially and work wise,” providing an upbeat, positive vibe. The open-concept space has fostered a new sense of collaboration, bolstered by the fact that the central location finds more people in the office rather than working remotely. Find out more about the new WEX Europe HQ in our recent blog post.