Benifex, the employee benefits technology provider, has appointed Mohamad Awada as chief services officer as it looks to strengthen delivery and customer outcomes during its next phase of growth. Awada will lead the company’s global Professional Services and Consulting functions from London, with responsibility for improving adoption, accelerating implementation, and shortening the path from strategy to go-live.
The appointment brings in an executive with experience across sales, consulting, product, strategy, and professional services. Awada joins from SAP Emarsys, where he also served as chief services officer and oversaw the development of services through greater automation and more scalable delivery in a highly configurable enterprise CRM environment.
The hire lands at a time when employers are under pressure to show that benefits programmes are doing more than simply existing on paper. Benifex cited recent CIPD data showing that 22% of employers have no goals set for their benefits, while only 31% are actively using them to improve productivity or business performance. That leaves a gap between programme design and measurable organisational impact.
For large employers operating across multiple markets, the challenge is increasingly practical rather than conceptual. The issue is not only deciding which benefits to offer, but implementing them consistently across jurisdictions, aligning them with local regulatory requirements, and ensuring employees actually understand and use what is available. In that context, the services layer around a benefits platform becomes more strategic.
Mathieu Stevenson, CEO of Benifex, said: “Employers are under more pressure than ever to show that benefits are doing what they are meant to do – supporting employees in meaningful ways while contributing to wider business goals. That puts far greater strategic importance on the platform experience, from adoption and implementation to ongoing performance and results.
“This role reflects how important that has become for our customers and for Benifex. Mo brings deep experience of building high-performing Services teams in complex technology environments, and he will play a critical role in helping us support customers more effectively as they, and we, continue to grow.”
The company said Awada’s focus will be on scaling its services functions to deliver smoother implementations, stronger uptake, and clearer outcomes for both employers and employees. That suggests a broader shift in how benefits technology providers position themselves: not only as software vendors, but as delivery partners expected to translate platform capability into measurable workforce outcomes.
Awada said: “What makes this opportunity compelling is the chance to help customers bridge the gap between benefits strategy and day-to-day reality. In practice, success is not defined by what an organisation intends to offer, but by how confidently it can execute across markets, how clearly employees understand what is available to them, and how effectively that translates into engagement, productivity, and business results.
“I’m excited to join a business with such a strong platform and customer base, and to focus on helping organisations deliver greater consistency, move faster, and realise more value from their benefits investment.”
As benefits programmes come under closer scrutiny from leadership teams, the quality of implementation is becoming harder to separate from the value of the underlying technology. Benifex’s latest appointment signals that service execution is moving closer to the centre of that commercial proposition.
