Global Talent Without The Guesswork

Talent gaps don’t feel strategic when they hit, they feel personal: missed deadlines, burned-out managers, and the slow bleed of “we can’t grow because we can’t hire.” From the floor at Enterprise Connect, we sit down with Brett and Sebastian from Gr8 Global to talk about a practical answer: building global capability center (GCC) teams that give companies real access to experienced remote talent.

We dig into Gr8 Global’s origin story as a GCC provider created during COVID for eight Top 100 accounting firms, and what it took to stand up around 100 professionals in roughly six months. Then we zoom out into the commercial market: how global staffing can support not only tax and accounting roles (from staff accountant up through manager and director level talent), but also executive assistants, HR support, graphic design, and other remote-friendly positions. The thread running through it all is scalability without the endless recruiting cycle.

AI is the turning point in the conversation. We share why the best operators will combine an AI workforce with humans, letting AI agents handle repeatable tasks while people move into higher-value work like review, advisory, and client relationships. We also look at Latin America’s nearshore momentum, where strong talent and time-zone alignment help teams build more with fewer people, especially as companies choose to create tools instead of buying everything off the shelf.

If you’re wrestling with hard-to-fill roles, rising labor costs, or a mid-level experience shortage, you’ll leave with a clearer hiring strategy and a more realistic view of how AI and global talent fit together. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a leader who owns hiring, and leave a review with the role you’re struggling to fill most.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

And I'm here at Enterprise Connect with Great Global. Gentlemen, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Doing good this morning. How are you doing, Evan?

The Origin Story And Eight Investors

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Uh doing well. Really intrigued by you guys and the mission. Brett, let's start with you and introductions. What's the story, the backstory, the genesis of Great Global?

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Yeah, so Great Global was founded as a GCC provider for eight top 100 accounting firms in the United States. So we came together during COVID. We were really wanting to focus on supporting the tax and accounting profession with talent in India and the Philippines. And our eight investor clients wanted to look to those areas to really maximize their team build, their scalability, and those types of things.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Eight investor clients. That's quite a few parents. How does that work in terms of your day-to-day and the organization?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Yeah, that's right. And so it's interesting. So we were actually able to stand up a hundred professionals in six months for those individual firms. They each kind of did it a little bit differently. They each had their own goals that they were trying to achieve. They each work in different sectors of tax and accounting. So it was really interesting to watch them build those individual teams. We learned a lot. We didn't do everything perfect, but we learned the good, the bad. And now that we're expanding out into the commercial market, we're using everything that we learned during that period to help other firms, not just tax and accounting, uh really tap into that international talent market.

What Roles Great Global Fills

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Wow, that's fascinating. And Sebastian, a colleague here, um how do you define your role in Great and your personal mission?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Uh so we are helping Great uh get into Latin America. Um we also help from the technical perspective. Since we are a tech company, like we provide we are in the GCC world, but we also have this knowledge in technology. So I think uh with Great, we are like helping to land in Latin America, but also um add this technology to all the process that we can bring to them. That's fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

And so, Brett, you know, describe, if you will, the the array of services and talent and projects, programs that you you focus on.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah, absolutely. So really, we have built our business in the tax and accounting space, and that would be from any positions from staff accountant all the way up to director and manager level talent. We can bring that access to US space firms, and we can bring that talent down market where traditionally those firms had only been able to get that type of talent in, you know, kind of that big four type environment, that you know, top 20, top 50 type environment. Well, we can scale all the way down to a 30-person firm or even a five or 10-person firm and get them the talent that they're working. Yeah, right. Well, and so it's interesting you say that because we can staff all sorts of positions. We've recently been helping uh C-suite executives with executive assistants, for instance. So Telos has helped us um expand into that market in Columbia specifically, but we can really fill any type of position that can be done remotely. I'm currently working with a construction client in Ohio that's looking for some expertise in the construction estimator business. We can do those types of things. We can do HR support, uh, we can do graphic design support as well. So, really any of those types of positions that you're looking for, expanded talent or rapid scalability where it might take you a little bit longer to find the expertise that you're looking for in the United States, we can tap into uh that international talent that otherwise folks may not even know exists.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Interesting. And how do you think about skill sets these days in an era of AI? Everyone's upskilling, learning. Uh, there's big questions about uh replacement of humans by AI, and you're right in the middle of the human side. Um, what's your perspective on skills and knowledge work these days in the AI era?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Absolutely. So we were talking about this last week, and I think really the organizations that are going to succeed through this transition period are those that are going to be able to utilize both types. So utilize that AI workforce or those agents that you can put into play to do certain things to then take the talent that you've got on the human side of things and move that into the more beneficial areas of work where you want that interpersonal connection. We talk about this with our GCC builds as well. So the concept of let's say you have an individual here in the United States that you've wanted to move into a higher level position, but you've not been able to do that because you can't replace the work that they're needing to do. If you want to hire internationally or through our network, we can provide you the staff to help fill that role. And then those individuals can get moved into a higher level position where maybe they're spending more time building those client relationships back and forth, which is at the heart, especially of tax and accounting, the difference for the for those companies is that relationship that they make with their clients. And so if you can help a firm do that and scale that way, they're gonna be a client forever.

Latin America Talent Market Snapshot

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Oh, it's fantastic. So, Sebastian, I mean, um US companies and others have been offshoring and outsourcing and partnering with Latin American uh uh uh developers in particular for for many years. Give us a snapshot of the talent marketplace and that whole offshore model these days in Latin America where the hotspots, the sweet spots, and what's happening?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Um so I would say we are getting like, especially with all this AI revolution, we're seeing like a lot of new opportunities. Even like uh I think what is happening is uh now you can do more work with less people, and that allows too many companies that in the past were able to like get into development, get into their own project, their own tools. And that for us has been like a an we are seeing a great uh expulsion. So uh probably during this year and the next year, we are going to receive even more opportunities because now a lot of companies start uh thinking, oh, I can build my tool my own. I don't need to go, I'll try and buy because with a small team I can I can I can get things done. So uh we are seeing that is we start receiving more demand, and actually during the the last probably two or three months we have we've had the growth. Uh the other thing that we will say with AI, like uh demand is going to decrease. For in our case, it it was growing. Because from a cost perspective, working like near shore, onshore, offshore, sorry, uh is uh makes a lot of sense. And we have great talent. Uh, we are able to uh find the people that here in the United States is really expensive, or you have to compete with the big companies. Uh, and we have people with that expertise in Latin America, and so we get help them to get the opportunities here. So uh we are seeing like this AR revolution, uh, if we do it in the in the in the correct way, it's going to bring a lot of opportunities even for a business like us.

The Hardest Skills To Hire

SPEAKER_02 7:19

That's fantastic. Uh and Brett, just uh a final thought, if if I could ask. Um, you know, what where are the the skills that are most in demand these days? You know, we talk about um a tough job market in some cases, but in many cases you just can't find people with certain skills uh in very niche or vertical marketplaces. What what are some of the you know most uh in-demand areas for you?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Yeah, so for us, it would be kind of in that middle experience bandwidth of your profession. So our tax and accounting clients are really striving to find kind of that senior to manager level type employee where in their world uh they're just not enough of those folks that exist to do the work that they need to do. So, you know, being able to help organizations scale and find that talent all over the world is really what we're trying to do. I think the other thing that we're gonna find is more of those I would kind of categorize them in support network type roles. So those executive assistants, maybe your firm can't afford to hire uh a full-time graphic designer. We can hire you a full-time graphic designer at a lower price point where you prior couldn't get that type of work.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

So as Sebastian Again, I may need to we may need to talk afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

So, you know, as Sebastian was saying, you know, really being able to bring talent to an organization that otherwise didn't think that they had access to or the resources financially to get that type of talent.

Expansion Plans And Where To Connect

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Fantastic. And what are you excited about over the next few weeks, months, uh as we head into the year? What's on your mind agenda-wise, trips, plans, events?

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Well, I think really for us, um, one, it was so exciting for us to both come to this conference together because this is the first time that we got to meet in person. Sebastian and Pablo and all the folks at Telos, we've all been meeting for the last year or so uh virtually. So that's exciting for us. But I think really the ideas that we've been talking about a lot are how do we utilize the best of both worlds for us? Combine that with the AI technology that we've been talking about, and really go to the market and say, what is it exactly that you need? Tell us where you have your gap and let us develop a solution to bring that to bear for you because that's what we want to do. It's it's such an exciting time for me because we have no limits. I would say there's there's nowhere that we can land that we can't help someone that's looking for talent, for tech support, for all of those types of things. So, you know, we're just excited about our expansion and our growth. This is really kind of the second year of our commercial expansion for Great Global. So we're just excited to get out, talk more about who we are and what we're doing in these different industries, and just find ways to help companies expand and scale.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Fantastic. And where can people go to find out more? GR8 Global.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Is that Great Global? Um, we're all over LinkedIn as well. That's you know, primarily we love we love to interact with folks on LinkedIn. Uh, we do that as well with Salos. And so um fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Well, we'll be sure to connect there. Thanks, guys.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Thanks, gentlemen. Absolutely. Take care.