The Nearshore Cafe
You Cannot Lead Globally Without Changing How You Speak
You can have the perfect project plan and still fail if you speak to every culture the same way. I sit down with Anna Martins, a Brazil-based project manager whose career jumps from hotel management to IBM, then into 14 years at British Telecom before shifting into Asia-focused work through SingTel. Along the way, she learns the hard truth of global teamwork: communication is never “one size fits all,” especially when your stakeholders span Latin America, the United States, Europe, India, and Asia. Anna tells the story of arriving in London convinced she spoke English, then realising she could not understand everyday speech and accents in real time. That discomfort becomes her advantage. We unpack how confidence is built, why she avoided staying in a Portuguese-speaking bubble, and what it means for international business and remote work when your message has to land clearly across different styles. If you lead distributed teams, you will recognise the daily realities: when to build rapport, when to get straight to results, and how to stay authentic while adapting your tone. We also get practical about nearshore hiring and why Brazil is a strong choice for US companies building Latin America talent strategies: time zone alignment, strong English skills, multinational experience, and a cultural bias toward persistence and customer satisfaction. Anna closes with her first trip to Singapore, from the heat and the safe late-night transit to the spicy food that made her crave Brazilian barbecue, plus her must-do list for Sao Paulo. If you care about cross-cultural leadership, global project management, and building high-trust teams across borders, listen through to the end, then subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review. What is the biggest communication gap you have faced on a global team? Host | Brian Samson – Founder of Plugg Technologies https://www.linkedin.com/in/briansamson/ ️ Sponsored by Plugg Technologies – Connecting U.S. companies with top-tier software developers across Latin America. https://www.plugg.tech Follow The Nearshore Cafe Podcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6KYcgpmN77fJm6B25469B8 ️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nearshore-cafe/id1775525954 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-nearshore-cafe Website: https://www.nearshorecafepodcast.com All links: https://linktr.ee/nearshorecafepodcast
