The Nearshore Cafe
Hear from Nearshoring veterans about what it's like living and doing business in LATAM. Join our hosts and numerous guests from LATAM & the U.S. with interesting real life experiences. This podcast is full of great stories and useful advice on how to navigate the world's most untapped talent market along with travel tips.
The Nearshore Cafe
You Cannot Lead Globally Without Changing How You Speak
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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?
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Welcome And Sponsor Shoutout
SPEAKER_00Welcome everyone to another exciting episode of the Nearshore Cafe Podcast. I'm your host, Brian Sampson, and we get into the stories and people doing business in Latin America on the Nearshore Cafe. Before I introduce our guest, let me thank our sponsor, Plug Technologies, P L U G G dot Tech. Great way to connect talent from all over Latin America with growing U.S. companies. If you are curious about global teams working across continents, cultures, styles, wow, this is going to be one of the most significant episodes we've ever had. We have Anna Martins, a Latin America-based project manager, actually from Brazil, who's worked globally and just got back from Singapore. We are really thrilled to have you on the show, Anna. Welcome.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me. It's it's a pleasure. Happy to be here.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
From Hotels To Telecom Projects
SPEAKER_00Anna, you've had a really interesting career. Before we even get into the communication and culture and working across borders, just give the audience a sense of who you are, where you're from, education, early career, how how you how you kind of got to the place you're at today.
SPEAKER_01So I have a different start, not a project management beginning. So as I said, I'm from Brazil, born and raised, live here entire life. I have a bachelor's degree, imagine that, in hotel management. I worked in hotel management for five plus years and thought that will be my entire life. So worked in hotels in my region, Sao Paulo State here in Brazil. And then I said I think it's time for some change and decided to do a student exchange. That's what and then I went to London. So lived there for about a year. Worked in hospitality as well in London because the the the exchange was hospitality related. And then when I got back, I said, okay, let's try to find a job in hospitality. And I didn't. I looked for it, nothing fit, I didn't like it, or they didn't want me. So I started looking for different things. I start I started teaching English to pay the bills. Yeah and then I was almost embarking on a cruise ship to work for a cruise ship in Europe. I was all all the paperwork was done. I was about to go to the ship. Then I call, I receive a call for an interview in I at IBM. There is IBM in Sao Paulo State. I went to the interview and I passed. And I said, what to do now? So buy hospitality. Let's start working on this multinational work company. Work there for about a year, and then you make friends. Friend of a friend gave me a chance to do an interview, and then I started a telecom word. I work for British Telecom. Start working for British Telecom. And then this is where my telecom experience started, and also my project management background started.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so I stayed there for 14 years in BT.
SPEAKER_0014 years. What a what a what a career.
London Culture Shock And Learning English
SPEAKER_00I would love to just spend a minute in that earlier part of the year you spent in London. Tell us a little more about that, and maybe just like, you know, I I had my own personal experiences where like the world became smaller, you know, as I as I did some of these trips, and how you, you know, some of your impressions of London, the English speaking world, takeaways, what was hard, what what did you enjoy? You know, things like that.
SPEAKER_01When I got to London, I thought I spoke I speak English. No, I didn't speak English at all. So my first month there, I couldn't understand what they were talking. I remember my first experience in a supermarket, and the lady at the cashier was saying cash back, cash back, and I couldn't understand what she was saying. And uh so and I the idea when I was I decided to do the exchange was to not to start speaking English because at the time I already was already speaking English, but uh to to have the confidence to speak with you, for example, so yeah, to just speak, but yeah, it was different. The the the accent, I love it, but it's difficult at the uh at the beginning. Then uh after a while you get and I I made a I made a point to not talk to people in Portuguese. So I ran away of all the Brazilians that I met there. So sorry, I want to live with English people or English speaking people. So I made the the point of and uh at the I started working as a housekeeper, yeah, but you don't speak because you are cleaning rooms the entire day. And uh the school was responsible to to help me get interviews in the hospitality area. So I I went to the school, I said, I need to speak. My dad is paying a lot of money for me to be here, so I need to speak English, and then I started working on a wine house, and then everything changed, was when I I jumped to another level, and I started evening uh dreaming in English, which is when I started dreaming in English, it is uh now I'm speaking English, now I know how to do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I wanted to ask you, Anna, because you know, Sao Apollo is it's a mega city, alpha city, very cosmopolitan. There are people from all over the world there, uh obviously big Japanese population as well. How did that maybe impact you growing up and you know, versus from maybe coming from rural Brazil?
Brazil Identity And European Travel Lessons
SPEAKER_01So growing up, I didn't uh my dad used to work at the at São Paulo in São Paulo at the capital. So he lived it, he he lived that life. I didn't. I remember as growing up, he sometimes took me with him to his work. So wow, Sao Paulo, it is a big city, it's amazing. Paulista Avenue, where all the banks are. So but here in my city, it's a countryside, I didn't have this this sense of the how big was and this mixture of people like Sao Paulo. Like they have the Japanese community, I think it's the biggest one outside Japan.
SPEAKER_00I think so, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so in my city we didn't have that. I started seeing this when I started working in hospitality. Because then the word opened itself to me. The the the hotel I used to work was very multicultural. We receive a lot of foreign people and people from Sao Paulo and other states, top executives, so and then the word opened to me, but not like London. Sao Paulo is multicultural, but I think I I had this global view when I went to London.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And then uh when you when you grow up in Brazil, which is uh you know different from its neighbors in and that it doesn't speak Spanish, is it? Um what what's what's the attitude and mindset for most Brazilians of learning Spanish or we don't need to because Brazil is a big enough country itself?
SPEAKER_01Actually, we don't like just I we don't like people saying that we speak Spanish. This is a I remember in London, ah you speak Spanish. No, I don't. We speak Portuguese. And some people, ah, you speak Brazilian. No, we speak Portuguese. And growing up, Spanish was not something that uh at least the the people that I know, we were not interested about it. Here, at least here where I live with the people I know, English is the thing. We need to learn English because English will take you to other levels. Now it's not even a difference, uh it's a differential, it's something you need to know. You need to speak English. But uh, the Spanish came to my life already working for a BT. And I see I have a lot of now. I'm working with Latin countries and they don't speak Portuguese. I need to learn Spanish. So, but we do was we have a lot of, at least in my city, I know some Argentinian people, but was not something I was interested in learning Spanish. English was always I I really like English. I think it's easier. Spanish and Portuguese, they are very difficult languages. So I was a bit lazy to learn Spanish.
SPEAKER_00And then before we we jump into the global project management world, if you could just take a minute, tell us more about your your Europe experience. Did you get a chance to travel around a little bit to Europe as well?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I travel all around the UK. So I met Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. It's amazing. Scotland is in my heart, Edinburgh. And then I could visit Brazil and I had to go to Portugal. So I visit Portugal and I had a chance to go to Spain. So and this is what I love the most about uh Europe and the UK itself. Brazil is so big, it's a continental country, so it's very difficult to get everywhere. I was doing this comparison with a friend just when I got now now that I got back from Singapore, and one of my colleagues was saying, I'm here from Singapore to Thailand, nine hours by car. My mom lived in a city that was six hours by six hours by car from my from my city, and in the same state. We didn't even change the state. So this is uh and Europe is is is so small, so small. So this is nice. You can visit so many countries, it's cheaper, it's easier. So and uh and so I love Europe, I love England, I really do. I had a chance to do a stopover in London now on the way to Singapore, so I had a chance to to visit a bit. Go back and uh and I learned London. I met so many people from so many parts of the world, and uh it was so interesting. And even though we Brazilians, we don't have like a face, I say that we don't look like anything, but we know when we are talking to a Brazilian, and this is awesome. I met a lot of Brazilian people there as well. Try to run away from them, but we find each other.
SPEAKER_00I can see that.
Managing Global Teams Across Work Styles
SPEAKER_00Okay, so let's let's talk business a little bit. So IBM, British Telecom, tell us more about what you were working on there, the the the groups of people where they were based, what you were managing, leading, how you were communicating. I'd I'd love to dive deeper into that.
SPEAKER_01My time in IBM was so short I didn't have a chance to work with a lot of people outside Brazil. I work with some people from the US. But when I joined BT, BT at the time was present in over 190 countries. But they have big hubs like all the multinationals have. So I started working a lot of people from India, and uh I was happy because I met a lot of people from India in uh in London. So I could understand them. It was easy for me to communicate with them and I understand them a bit. And then I started working with a lot of people from Europe and with a lot of people from the US, which is different from the European guys, they are more straightforward, more more direct, and everything. And as a and I joined uh BT working for a project for one of the governmental, one of the government banks, the biggest one in Brazil. So over 18,000 sites that we had to cover. I worked that for a bit and then I changed after three years in BT, I guess, I changed it to global projects. And then that's why when I inserted myself in this global motor cultural change and work with people from all over the world, Hungary, India, US, Europe, and uh it's amazing how you need to adapt to those people and how you need to you need to be different. We we we too culture, you you have to be different. And then I stayed there in BT for 14 years working for a big company, and then that's why I'm in SingTel now, because this big company changed it to SingTel, and then now I thought and then so I'm working now with Asia. Mainly, I changed it a bit.
SPEAKER_00Tell us more, Anna, about uh what you just said a few minutes ago about you need to be different, obviously mean like adapting styles and communication and so forth, whether people are in Hungary or the US or India. Tell us more about that. Uh, then if you have any specific thoughts or examples, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_01We from at least I consider I think this about me from Latin America. We like to build relationship. So before going. So we like to build relationships to understand the other. Uh we are very people-oriented, we don't give up, we like to think, let's say think outside the box and think on the solution and the customer. Working with people from India, for example, I learned they are very process-oriented. They like to follow process, they which is good for governance, of course, but uh they they don't have this flexibility. And uh so I had to adapt it to this. As a project manager, I like to bend the rules sometimes, and they are not very open to bend the rules. And I understand because they need to follow the process. So I had to adapt to the Americans. I think they are very straightforward. It is what it is, and let's do it this way. And they like the results, they they they are focused on the results. The Europeans, I feel they have another way of working, they are also straightforward, but uh, don't touch on what is mine, do what is you, yours, and I'll do it mine, and that's it. And now I'm learning another thing with the Asians, they are very direct. Yeah, it is again, it is what it is, and they're very direct, they are very practical and they like the solution. So I I had to learn all of those things, understand that the way I talk with my Indian colleagues, it's not the same way that I talk that I talk with my Asian colleagues or my American colleagues. At the end, I'm always me. But anyway, I need to adapt the way I will approach those people. With some people, I can laugh a little more, with some I cannot. I need to be work, work, work. So this has been amazing. And at my age, now changing company and learn to to work with the Asian folks. It's been amazing because I never worked with Asia before. Yeah, they are different, and it's very interesting to see. Very interesting to see. I'm adapting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, let's uh retract back a little bit just to the continent for a second.
What Makes Brazilian Teams Valuable
SPEAKER_00You know, and and and maybe I'll I'll bring in some of my biases to this to help us flush this out a little bit. So um, you know, obviously Latin America has a collective of countries that are standalone countries and they have their own cultures and personalities and styles, and you've got Argentina, and then kind of right in the middle between Argentina and Brazil is Uruguay, and you know, there's a much different style and more conservative. I would love for you to to maybe just talk about, you know, Brazil is so unique in that it's a mega country, like you said. Um, it speaks a different language than its neighbors. There's I mean, Brazil is so big that it could be a standalone, you know, um it almost doesn't need to do all this trade because it's so big itself, right? Where you know, I talked to other people in, you know, different countries in Latin America and they they have much a much bigger reliance on external countries because they need it for their economic engine and livelihood and so forth. And so therefore maybe they're more adaptable, flexible. I don't know. But I'd I'd love to maybe just kind of start start with that and hear your thoughts and you know what it means to work across Latin America.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we can be autosufficient if you want, but we don't. I don't see that we don't. We liked this this mixture, we like this combination of things. We like to be open to to the world. And we do have a very good, at least I see it this way, having a very good relationship with our near our neighbors, not Argentina. There's a big rivalry with Argentina, but uh having having a uh a good relationship. But yeah, I see that they they depend more on us than we depend on them. This is good for us, actually. But we are we are open. We want to to have the world with us and uh sharing our culture, sharing our resources, sharing our people, and uh being able to to share our knowledge with the world. So I think yeah, we are we are we are open.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, yeah, maybe talk about like work styles, communication, and you know, you you know, even for example, some countries love small talk, others get right to the point, you know, maybe how you've thought about that as as a project manager working across borders. Some really want to know that you care about them before you know they they start work, others, let's let's get right to it. Deadlines, being on time for meetings, you know, all the different different experiences that you've had.
SPEAKER_01We Brazilians are not very known for being on time for things, but for work, we are on time for things. We are very I I I and talking about myself, I'm very sheddy. When I'm on a meeting with people or I'm on activity and that is impacting my customers' location, I like to talk. I like to because everything so it's not important the word, but I see I want to make the mood lighter. And we are known here, so I guess uh we don't give up. In Brazil, we don't give up. So I think this is a differential for the Brazilian folks. We don't give up and we work a lot. We work a lot. People from outside Brazil like to say that, for example, we have a lot of holidays here in Brazil. We do sometimes, depending on the year, but we work, we work so much and we don't give up. I think this is our different it doesn't matter if it's weekend, uh if it's night, graveyard shift. We we like to deliver, we like to make people happy, we like to please people. And I think this is a big difference, not just the Brazilian people, the Latin America as a whole. We like to make people happy. We're talking about Brazil specifically, so we f of course we are focusing on the final delivery, but we are focusing on the customer satisfaction. Ah, is not happy with this. Let's try to find a way. We think about the process later. Let's try to find a way to deliver what is necessary. And this is my project management style. Let's deliver, let's make it work. Then we see what we did wrong, what we can make better, and uh why we didn't get to this final result in first in the first place. So I think that's why people search us in Latin America. We are we want to do it, we we want to deliver the things, and we are cheaper. But it's we we want to make it happen. It doesn't matter the time, we're gonna make it work.
SPEAKER_00And uh I want to make sure we we have enough time to cover your trip to Singapore.
First Time In Singapore And Asia
SPEAKER_00What was that like? It was your first time there, right?
SPEAKER_01First time in Asia, first time in Asia, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Tell us about being in Singapore, what did you eat, first impressions, culture, whatever?
SPEAKER_01So far away from Brazil. My god, two days to get there, two days to return to Brazil. Of course, I have my stopover in London on the way in and out. Traveling was 26 hours, so 12 to London, another 14 to Singapore.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01And uh my first impression when I arrived to the airport was my god, it's hot. And Brazil is hot, but my city specifically, it's very dry. Singapore was it's unbelievable how hot it is there. But uh, I love the city, it's it's a city made by men, it's unbelievable. The skyscrapers, the uh I had a chance to do all the touristy things on my time off. So I visit Marina Basin, the gardens by the bay, did all the experience. For me personally, the most difficult part was the food because they like spicy things. I don't like spicy eggs, and I think I said to my colleagues at the Friday, at the last dinner with everybody, said, Oh my god, I had enough with the I'm done with the spicy, I cannot have it anymore. I need, I don't know, I need some barbecue. This is the first thing that I ate when I arrived to Brazil, as a matter of fact.
SPEAKER_02That's so funny.
SPEAKER_01I was so happy to be there. People were very, very, very friendly. Uh, it's very easy to walk around Singapore. It's one uh one day I was tired of my colleagues. I'm gonna go out by myself. 11 p.m. I was walking in the train by myself. This is unfortunately not something I can do here in my city. So I really, really, really like it. And I'm already thinking about next year if I have the chance. And all my colleagues from they talked to me, it's the first time, what are you thinking? And they gave me a lot of tips of what to do. Christian was one that gave me a lot of tips what to do around Singapore and going to Thailand and everywhere around Asia, Tokyo was amazing. It's something that I will never forget. Was not on my card list or my bingo card to say, I want to go to Singapore, but I'm happy I did it. Was very, very nice. And the people were very friendly. I was afraid meeting Asian people because we are culturally very different, but they were so friendly and uh yeah, it was very, very nice.
SPEAKER_00That's so great to hear. I want to uh ask a few more questions. Um one, you know, let me frame it this way, because I think for those that are listening that are maybe um maybe based in this in the US and they're looking to say expand into Brazil. And you already shared some comments about you know, Brazilians are hardworking, they might be late on the weekends, but not late for meetings. Besides that, what are some other things that you would maybe advise them on if they were to hire a team in Brazil?
SPEAKER_01So, first of all, we are very hard worker. We speak good English, we like to speak English. It's like people like to learn English. You can count teams in Brazil, you can count with a team that will not give up, will not uh give up on uh deliveries, will deliver a complete service, and we like we like to deliver the full project. Some people say that we are lazy. I don't see it that way. We we we we are not lazy. Our time zone helps to give service to the US. And we will will we have so many US things here in our culture, so it's easy for us to to work with them, to to understand them and to understand what they want to receive. And I think we are so prepared for that. We we have we have people that invested in developing, studying. We have so many opportunities here in Brazil to uh to develop it uh project management uh skills, and we have so many uh multinational multinationals here. So I think you're gonna get uh a dedicated team that have great ideas that have different ideas. We don't like the obvious. We like to think, I don't like this phrase, but uh, we like to think outside of the box to give different ideas, different perspectives. If we cannot do this way, let's try this way. So I think we can deliver great, great work.
SPEAKER_00Amazing.
Sao Paulo Food Culture And Farewell
SPEAKER_00And Anna, uh for those that maybe have never been to Sao Paulo before, maybe your friends in Singapore, if they were ever to visit Sao Paulo or friends in in America, what would you say these are the three things you have to do while you're there, or the places you have to eat, or the things you have to drive?
SPEAKER_01Sao Paulo City. Well, so if you are in Brazil and Sao Paulo State, you have you need to have barbecue. So if I'm receiving someone from Singapore, I'm gonna invite them to my house. Let's do a party and let's have some barbecue. I think this is basic. In Sao Paulo, there are so many amazing things. If you want to go to museums, there is uh the Maspi Museum is a big thing. There is uh, I think if I'm not mistaken, Museu do Ipiranga that takes you back to the to the time that uh Portugal was already ruling with us and we had an emperor. So it was closed, I think it's already open, so it's an amazing place. I remember going when I was little, so uh it's very nice. And uh this is me personally. I like padarias. Go to padarias where you can have breakfast, very nice breakfast. And I'll always when someone from outside comes to Brazil, you need to go to a padaria and have something with we call French bread, and that you must have that. And now in Sao Paulo we are having a lot of musicals, something that I like, so like uh a bit of a West End in Sao Paulo. I would say go to the theater, go to go see a musical in Portuguese. The experience will be nice.
SPEAKER_00Amazing, amazing. Love this list. We'll make sure to include this. Include this in the show notes for the for the episode publishing. But Anna, this has been uh a true pleasure. Uh I've learned so much, and I think people that are interested in working across borders, this is gonna be a very, very impactful episode. So thank you for sharing all your uh wisdom and experience.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, and thanks for for being so kind and thank you for having me. Happy to be here.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. This is the Nearshore Cafe Podcast, and we are sponsored by Plug Technologies, P L U G G dot Tech. Great way to connect talent from all over Latin America with U.S. companies. I'm your host, Brian Sampson. We'll see you next time. Next week for a new episode featuring another special guest.