Thomas A. Farmer, CCP, SPHR, ACTA
Tom Farmer is a highly accomplished total rewards leader and educator with a career spanning over 30 years, including 15 years each in corporate management roles and consulting. He is currently owner and Managing Director of Freelance Total Rewards Pte. Ltd. based in Singapore since 2013. He is also owner and co-founder of ASEAN Total Rewards Institute (ATRI, see http://www.my-atri.com) certifying total rewards practitioners in Asia. Before starting his own firm, Tom was with Mercer as Principal and Asia Pacific Leader for Global Mobility, where he drove development of Mercer’s global mobility training material and trained 85 Mercer consultants on global mobility practices and trends.
Tom has held corporate leadership roles at the global, regional (Americas and Asia Pacific) and country levels. In 2006, Tom joined InterContinental Hotels Group as Vice President, Compensation and Benefits, Americas. A year later, he was sent on long-term assignment to Singapore in the same role for the Asia Pacific region, where he hired a team of six, drove a global revision of IHG’s global mobility policy, upgraded compensation practices to global standards and introduced benefits changes that led to IHG’s recognition at Singapore’s HR Excellence Awards.
Recent consulting clients include Paysend, CrimsonLogic, IHH Healthcare, Mitsui Chemical, Toyota Tsusho Asia Pacific, NXP Semiconductors, The International Baccalaureate, Hempel, Armacell, Nexperia, InterContinental Hotels Group, Great Eastern Life Assurance, Jadestone Energy, Sanofi Aventis, Singapore Management University, QL Resources Sdn Bhd and Leighton Asia, India and Offshore. At Mercer, Tom’s clients included PTT Group (Thailand national energy conglomerate), Singapore Tourism Board, Ministry of Defense, AIA, MeadJohnson Nutrition, Kraft Foods, Chartis Insurance, Yum! International, Western Digital, MasterCard, Hilton Hotels and Toyota Tsusho Asia Pacific.
Prior to joining IHG, Tom was a senior consultant with Hewitt associates in Atlanta, Georgia, where he designed, led and completed several large compensation-related projects, including an eight-month assignment as interim Director of Compensation for Coca-Cola North America where he rebuilt Coca-Cola’s pay structures, cash recognition practices and fountain division sales incentives. Tom’s clients also included Auburn University, where he created a completely new compensation and classification system for administrative staff of 2,000 employees, and a new performance management system. Other clients included General Electric, Capital One, The Home Depot, Nextel, Verizon, Verizon Wireless, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Sunrise Senior Living, Giant of Landover, Synovus, Panasonic Wireless and several others.
Tom has been quoted by the U.S. Senate, CNN, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and many other leading national media on new federal overtime rules and related reward topics, and has spoken at numerous conferences in the U.S., Europe and Asia. His blog (www.freelancetotalrewards.com) covers rewards and talent mobility topics and has been read by over 20,000 people in more than 100 countries.
Tom has a Bachelors in Business Administration degree from Eastern Michigan University, where he was awarded Outstanding Management Student in 1986. He is a Certified Compensation Professional (CCP) through WorldatWork, and he serves WorldatWork as a certification faculty member (GRP/CCP) and an article reviewer. Tom is also certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR). In 2014, Tom completed an Advanced Certificate in Training and Assessment (ACTA), through Singapore’s Institute for Adult Learning, and is a professional courseware developer as well as trainer and certification provider.