For three years, Antonio Barradas has steered Epassi in the Netherlands, transforming it into a unified platform spanning health, wellbeing and lifestyle benefits. Epassi aims to guide workers toward the benefits that matter most to them through a single, integrated interface.
Now serving as Regional Managing Director across Epassi Netherlands, Epassi UK and Zest—which Epassi acquired in June 2025—Barradas is tasked with strengthening each operation by transferring successful products, technology and business approaches across regions while expanding Zest on the global stage.
His background spans more than a decade in senior commercial and leadership positions at major tech firms such as Just Eat Takeaway and RELX Group, where he drove expansion throughout European and worldwide operations. He gravitates toward technology that makes life simpler for people and recognizes a compelling opportunity in combining Epassi and Zest's respective capabilities.
Scaling Without Losing Local Context
Barradas reflects on his decade-plus journey through senior commercial roles across Europe, noting that international expansion has taught him that growth strategies cannot follow a single template everywhere.
"Scaling businesses internationally has reinforced that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to growth," he explains. Even the most robust digital offerings must adapt to regional workplace benefit structures, cultural norms, regulatory frameworks and how people make purchasing decisions. Local variations inevitably present obstacles, and each market demands a tailored value proposition.
Epassi already functions across several European territories, and the task isn't to start from scratch. Barradas's responsibility involves amplifying how the organization shares its proven approaches by moving successful product and commercial strategies from one region to another while respecting the distinct requirements of employers and staff in each location. The goal is to accelerate expansion while preserving what distinguishes each market.
What the Netherlands Revealed About Benefits Engagement
Under Barradas's leadership in the Netherlands over the past three years, Epassi has grown to serve more than 5,000 businesses. That expansion uncovered crucial insights into what makes benefits platforms effective in the real world.
"Our success in the Netherlands has demonstrated how a true multi-benefit platform can drive engagement at scale," Barradas states. A critical finding emerged: offering choice by itself does not guarantee employees will actually take up their benefits. For platforms to create genuine value, benefits must be straightforward to find, match what workers actually need and remain manageable for employers to administer.
In his expanded regional role, Barradas concentrates on transferring Netherlands lessons to markets where they matter most, while simultaneously bringing proven capabilities from Epassi UK and Zest into other territories.
The Logic Behind Bringing Three Businesses Together
Epassi has now unified three operations—Epassi Netherlands, Epassi UK and Zest—under a single regional framework. The reasoning behind this move centers not on making all three identical, but on making each stronger by pooling what already succeeds.
The Netherlands has proven how a multi-benefit platform lifts employee participation; Epassi UK brings substantial market presence and a robust network of merchants and partners; Zest contributes advanced benefits technology designed specifically around what HR departments require.
This regional structure streamlines moving those established products, strengths and business approaches into fresh markets and expanding support for employers looking after their teams. Barradas's mission involves linking these capabilities more tightly by drawing on regional knowledge and experience while keeping offerings aligned with what each local market needs. By drawing these operations closer, the organization can deliver a more powerful service to employers, ultimately boosting worker wellbeing and, by extension, workforce productivity.
Why Choice Alone Falls Short
When asked what the Netherlands model demonstrates about engagement and why that success hasn't automatically spread to other regions, Barradas points to a fundamental truth: genuine engagement depends on whether workers actually want to use the benefits offered and whether accessing them feels effortless.
Meaningful choice plays a significant role. A diverse workforce with employees at various life stages and with differing priorities requires a wide selection of benefits. A multi-benefit platform makes meeting those varied needs simpler through one cohesive experience.
Yet choice by itself doesn't spark uptake. Converting available benefits into real engagement requires offerings that are simple to discover, straightforward to navigate and genuinely applicable to workers' circumstances.
This doesn't automatically work across borders because employee circumstances shift from country to country. Benefit frameworks, what matters most to workers and what they anticipate differ significantly, making it impossible to simply transplant one market's approach and expect identical outcomes.
What Zest Brings to HR Teams
Zest has earned a reputation as technology that HR departments genuinely want to use. In practical terms, this reflects the reality that modern workforces contain individuals with distinct lifestyles and priorities who expect benefits tailored to their specific situations. An effective contemporary benefits approach must acknowledge this, offering both customization and options within a single, intuitive platform.
Research indicates that just over half of UK workers—51%—believe improved benefits technology would strengthen their workplace engagement, underscoring how vital digital tools are for delivering successful HR initiatives.
Simultaneously, HR departments need systems that reveal what their staff actually wants, help them shape reward programs to match those desires and communicate efficiently with workers to boost participation. Through automation and self-service features, Zest streamlines benefits management and enables HR teams to introduce fresh benefits, monitor real-time usage patterns and oversee reward approaches without the typical complications.
Unlike conventional industry solutions, Zest grants HR leaders the ability to manage, set up and modify their benefits menu independently and on their own schedule through robust self-service options, without needing to request outside assistance or incur additional fees.
HR teams have responded enthusiastically to how Zest's platform eases pressures they face today. This encompasses the newly launched AI Benefit Consultant, which responds to employee questions about their benefits, removing routine administrative work from HR teams and freeing them to concentrate on higher-impact initiatives that boost engagement and strengthen how employees experience the workplace.
Addressing the Real Causes of Low Uptake
Benefits participation remains a widespread challenge across the sector. Barradas contends that the actual drivers of poor engagement differ from what many assume.
"Low engagement is rarely caused by a lack of investment in benefits; in fact employers are generally investing more in rewards offerings," he notes. Rather, weak uptake stems from workers not knowing what benefits exist, finding them difficult to access or perceiving them as irrelevant to their personal circumstances.
Many employers report struggling to inform staff about available benefits, and workers recognize this same shortfall. Research in the UK found that seven in ten employees—69%—wish to get regular, tailored alerts about their benefits, revealing that employers have a clear opening to strengthen communication around what they already provide.
Epassi, strengthened by Zest's capabilities, tackles these obstacles by letting workers reach a broad spectrum of health, wellbeing and other benefits via an accessible platform that makes discovering and using benefits simpler. Employers can reach out directly through the app and easily modify rewards based on what workers are or aren't using, creating personalized offerings that drive participation. When benefits are accessible, pertinent and well-promoted, uptake typically follows naturally.
International Expansion for Zest
With responsibility for taking Zest beyond the UK, Barradas is considering which territories represent the strongest opportunities. Growing recognition across regions that benefits shape engagement, retention and the ability to recruit talent—all contributing to more productive and healthier teams—is opening doors.
HR operations are becoming increasingly digital, and HR leaders show rising interest in superior tools for managing complex benefits schemes. This creates substantial international potential for Zest. Barradas's mandate involves expanding the platform past the UK and pinpointing where it can deliver the most value within Epassi's existing territories. Specific priority markets remain unannounced, though the regional structure positions the organization to move proven solutions into new areas more effectively.
Measuring Success in Three Years
Looking ahead, Barradas defines success by whether the regional structure achieves its core purpose: fortifying operations through shared learning across territories, lifting benefits engagement and uptake among the customer base and successfully expanding Zest internationally.
"Success will ultimately be judged by whether the regional structure has delivered on what it has been created to do: strengthening our businesses through cross-market learning, driving higher levels of benefits engagement and take-up across our customer base and successfully scaling Zest internationally," he concludes. "When we're seeing these results, we'll know we've achieved what we set out to do and I'm excited to help lead that next phase of growth."
Source: TechRound
