Global vs. Local: The Operating Model for $10M+ Expansion
The simple rule of thumb for internationalizing your marketing team.
When I talk to founders and CMOs taking their companies international, the same headache always comes up:
“Do we run marketing from HQ, or do we hire people on the ground?”
If you centralize everything, you’re efficient but “deaf” to the local culture. If you localize everything, you’re fast but your costs spiral and your brand becomes a mess of different identities. I know for a fact some of you are experiencing this right now.
Over the years, I’ve developed a simple rule of thumb to guide the decision:
Centralize what is scalable. Localize what requires proximity.
The Global Engine
In my experience, Performance Marketing (Google, Meta, TikTok etc.) belongs at HQ. The “operating system”, meaning your campaign structure, tracking, naming conventions, and bidding logic, doesn’t change when you cross a border. You want one elite team running the engine. What they need from the local markets is not the media buying capabilities but the fuel to the media buying: the right creative and messaging, the right local offers, and the right language.
The Local Pulse
On the flip side, offline and relationship-driven channels can’t be managed from a distance. You can’t easily negotiate TV spots in Paris from an office in New York. You can’t build a local influencer community or a physical partnership via Zoom. If a channel depends on “who you know” or “how things are done here,” it stays local.
The 6 Variables I Look At First
Before making a call, I always stress-test the business against these six factors:
Budget: Let’s be real, localization is expensive. If you’re lean, you centralize by necessity.
Talent: Do you have people at HQ who actually understand these markets? If not, you have to go to the source.
The Business Model: SaaS can often stay centralized longer. Logistics or “feet on the street” businesses (like food delivery) need local teams almost immediately.
Growth Motion: If you’re sales-led, you need local folks to grab coffee and close deals. If you’re product-led, you can stay central for much longer.
Cost vs. Attractiveness: Some hubs are great for talent but too expensive to justify the overhead early on.
Revenue: Once a single country starts bringing in a significant chunk of your ARR, it’s earned the right to its own dedicated team.
The Stuff People Underestimate
Most leaders stop at the list above. But I’ve seen expansion plans fail even with a “perfect” org chart because of a few hidden dimensions:
Decision Latency: This is a killer. Centralizing gives you control, but if a local team has to wait 48 hours for HQ to approve a social media post, you’ve already lost. In fast markets, speed beats efficiency.
The “Same Language” Trap: Thinking that “English-speaking” means “same culture” is a huge mistake. The way you persuade a customer in London is fundamentally different from how you do it in Sydney.
Accountability: I’ve seen many hybrid models fail because no one knew who actually owned the P&L. If the local lead has the revenue target but HQ has the budget, you’re setting yourself up for a fight.
Category Maturity: If no one in the new country knows what your product category is, you need local “educators.” If the category is mature, you can just run the central playbook.
The Bottom Line
Most companies don’t think about this until they hit market number three or four. By then, they’ve usually built a mess of “temporary” fixes.
Start with the scale-vs-proximity rule, but don’t ignore the “soft” stuff like decision speed and accountability. That’s usually where the real growth is won or lost.
As always, let me know if you found the issue interesting by hitting like or by commenting the post.
Thank you,
Enrico