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Building Culture Across Borders: How Visa’s Global Marketing Team Stays Connected
How do you create a unified culture across continents, time zones, and teams?
Join Lee Roth, Co-Founder of The Actionists, and Max Guirauton, Vice President of Marketing and Sales Development for Visa Direct, as they explore how to lead global teams, simplify complexity, and build partnerships that drive results. Max shares the leadership lessons that power Visa’s marketing organization from clarity and collaboration to humility and inclusion.
What You'll Learn:
Key Takeaways:
Perfect For:
Global marketing leaders, CMOs, agency partners, and anyone navigating cross-cultural teams or large-scale collaboration.
00:00 – Meet Max Guirauton & his role at Visa
02:38 – Building culture and repairing trust across global teams
05:48 – Common challenges and leadership principles that unite teams
10:00 – Simplifying complex messaging and aligning global stakeholders
15:20 – How to build effective partnerships with external agencies
19:38 – Using marketing and financial literacy to drive inclusion and impact
Lee (00:00)
Welcome to our latest edition of Breaking the Mold. My name is Lee Roth, co-founder of The Actionist, and I'm very happy to introduce someone I truly respect and actually enjoy working with, the one and only Max Guirauton Max, you're our very first Frenchman on Breaking the Mold. Bienvenue!
Max (00:21)
Thank you, thank you, Lee. Merci, I should say. Really, I love the introduction. Not only if I'm the one and only, but probably the one and only French people you will have on this show.
Lee (00:33)
Certainly after my pronunciations.
Well, Max, I'm so excited to have you on the show. You and I have been talking about doing this for a little bit now. But why don't we introduce you and why don't you tell everyone about who you are and your role at Visa.
Max (00:49)
Yeah, absolutely. So yes, I work for Visa. I'm the Vice President in charge of marketing and sales development for Visa Direct, which is one of the business lines of the big Visa brand. And as my title says, I looked after everything in marketing in that field, ⁓ as well as sales development representatives, which are a very important part of our equation and how we actually go to market.
Lee (01:19)
Nice. And I would say Max, out of most of the people I know, you have a very complicated and global role at Visa. So let's talk about how do you create a culture when you have team members all over the world and really with all different specialties.
Max (01:36)
Yeah, very good question. I don't know if my role is more complicated than others. We are in a very complex business because it is, you know, B2B, but what I'd like say it is B2B for X because at the end of the day, everything we do is embedded into what others will do to serve consumers or businesses. And the reason why I'm starting with this is because this has a big, big impact on the team's culture and the way we work and how we serve our customers. So there is a lot behind it to unpack. I think because we have this team around the world from San Francisco all the way to Singapore, you know, London in Europe, etc and that's in America and the Middle East.
What's really important and what drives us are our customers, our clients and the end clients. And I think it's, it is the number one thing that actually drives us and bring us together because we have those common goals to really serve our customer and be the customer's voice within the company and within the business line. I think the other thing that is super important is being is the clarity. There is the thing that I learned in my previous role around building a clarity framework and how clarity to the team, but also to the stakeholders is critical in being successful and making sure that the team rallies behind you and behind those goals. Being clear in what we're trying to achieve, being clear on how we're going to achieve it is equally important.
And being authentic as a person as well, right? At the end of the day, it is a human business, right? It is human to human. And I think it's important to just be you and encourage people to be themselves as well. Cause I think like, you you talk about culture, the reality is at the end of the day, the culture is not a one way thing or, you know, someone just you know, directing people to do something or to buy into something, which we call culture. I think it's more, it's more about like the sum of the individuals, where they're coming from, their backgrounds, that really adds to it and create a unique culture. And I mean, I'm blessed and honored to lead a team so diverse and dispersed because you can imagine how many different cultures we have, how many, you know, ways of working, way of looking at things, point of views, backgrounds, that is creating the culture. And encouraging the people to work together is what makes the team the team. It's not easy. I don't think it's, you know, we've completed that journey just yet. I think we still are very much in at the beginning of it. But creating and encouraging that cross collaboration between the people in product marketing, the people on the field.
The sales development representatives and everyone in between is critical. And I think this is really a working progress. This never ends because there is so much to be done, but also because it requires passion and buy-in, commitment to actually get there.
And also believing that you buy into a bigger goal than just yours. Sometimes as individual, like, especially when you think of your, you know, the way you're to be paid, your bonus, your KS, whatever, you know, drives you. it's really, usually it's really individual. And what we're trying to do is making them a collective. then your goals are also your coworkers goals, like, you know, your teammate goals and how to gather and collectively we achieve.
Lee (05:17)
Yeah.
Max (05:29)
I think this is really, really critical. And I think that helps us. And the last point, I think is also believing and buying into the company's culture. And at Visa, we have four key leadership principles that everyone are really believing and truly live. It's not just my principles on the wall and everyone can recite them, but don't buy into it, don't believe them.
Lee (05:42)
Yeah.
Max (05:59)
Really at Visa you talk to people and everyone buy into it. And I think that this is where the culture starts from. It starts from this, from that, those values, shared values that we have. And that helps building a team and building a culture for the team.
Lee (06:15)
That's great Max. I think if I could paraphrase what I heard and you tell me if this is right or wrong, there's really five areas that you mentioned. One, which I think is so important, especially in global roles, put your customers first. Two, give your team absolute clarity on why we're here, what we're trying to achieve. I think three, I love this, to celebrate the diversity of your team's backgrounds, not just where they're from, but their professional backgrounds as well.
Four was cross collaboration, and then I think five is shared KPIs and shared values. And I think that's a really good breakdown, Max, of how you created a relationship.
Max (06:54)
Yeah. And I think, you know what, I want to add a sixth one, is be present. Like show up, be there. When I started in my role, I, you know, probably, you know, more often than what my family wanted, but travel the world, meet the people, meet the people, our stakeholders as well, and work with, you know, with everyone. And I think it's really important that every day you show up.
Max (07:21)
You're trying to be present physically as well. And not only living in this, you know, especially in this new environment post-COVID where being virtual is so easy. Being, you know, there, physically there and spend time with people. And I probably don't spend enough time with everyone, but as much as I can, I think it's very important. And it's not only me, it's everyone, everyone in the team, how we show up, you know, at the office, outside of the office, be together. It's very important.
Lee (07:23)
Max, I think you do a great job setting the tone for that within the team from what I've seen. You're very good about being there and trying to be present and really driving the process. Well, I try everyday. I try my best.
Max (08:01)
Well, I'll try every day. I'll try my best.
Lee (08:04)
So Max, I want to go back to something you said about customer first, right? Because when you're in a global organization, there are just so many stakeholders and different points of view with mandates you get when developing marketing. So when it comes actually down to marketing messaging, how do you ensure you're able to simplify the message and really put your customer needs first versus all of your different stakeholders, which some may represent your customers, but some do, some don't, but there are so many different voices
Max (08:38)
Very good question. Never easy, not because people don't want it or don't want to achieve it. And actually it's one of our ⁓ leadership principle, which is being obsessed about our customers. So a lot of people, and everyone, almost everyone like really again, I said, believes it and lives it every day. But what's really hard is how do we simplify the complex and how do we make sure that
Lee (08:43)
Yeah.
Max (09:05)
What we do, especially from a marketing standpoint or sales enablement, etc. is telling a story that actually is solution driven rather than being, you know, internal centric. And I think it's, you know, sometimes it's just everyone wants to achieve the same thing, but it's how do we achieve it? And sometimes how do we just like, you know, flip the pyramid and achieve what we need to achieve?
By just flipping the pyramid and instead of trying to push our vision, just build the answer to the problems that the customers are actually raising to us. So in a way it's easy because everyone wants to achieve this. And I think where we start is framing the problem. The minute we start to have that, common understanding and agreement on what is the problem we're trying to solve for, then it becomes easy or easier to articulate what the solution is and how we should talk about it. So for me, this is critical is what is the problem we're solving? And then I think it's bringing the right stakeholders around the table to solve for that problem.
Because I think the big danger, and sometimes we're guilty of it, is that you go back into your silo and you build, you write your narrative and your story and the solution you think is right. But because you haven't been open to talk to, and you haven't brought all the stakeholders together, then you have a partial view or a biased view and you need to reframe and change. So think bringing the stakeholders into the solution, probably holding the pen at the beginning. So you have something that people can like, you know, reflect on and, and talk about, and then bring those, those point of views in and those point of views can be internal, but can also be external. The beauty of testing everything that we do helps us having the right narrative. Do we have it right all the time? No. Are we, you know, we still, I think we still very much figuring out how we can improve how we can be simpler to work with. But it's a journey and we need to appreciate that journey and test and learn. That's what we do every day. Test and learn, test and learn and reframe.
Lee (11:30)
Max, I love what you said there because I think, especially the first two things you said, if you're a global CMO or running global organization, if you could do those two things correctly, I think 80 % of your pain will go away, which is one, spend time defining that problem.
Right? If we're not all collectively defining the problem together, then how are you going to get to a common solution? Right? And the second thing is invite your stakeholders in. Like when I was a young marketer back in my early days, I would take it and run with it on my own and then have to fight the entire organization, which was absolutely dead wrong. You have to bring people into the process, make their voice heard upfront. And then if you're able to bring them in early, then they'll be with you towards the end. So that's really important. Then I like obviously your last point about testing and learning, but I think those first two are critical to run a successful global organization.
Max (12:30)
Yeah, agree. think the, you know, the other thing that is data is core and key, right? How do we get this data? A lot of companies will tell you that 80 % of your data is here, but it's wasted, etc and for sure, there's a lot of work to do internally to be, you know, better at not only collecting, but really getting the data to tell the story and help us framing the story. But I think there is some...
I believe personally, that's my personal belief that there are some limitations with just looking at the data. Because the data will tell you something, but will not tell you 100 % what clients will think about or will really want at a given time. And I think your data or starting point, they could help you reframing, but you also need to test that with live example, real clients get feedback, get, but also sales teams, product teams, to get, to get these and say, all right, the data are telling, are telling us to go left. Should we go like completely left or is it something that is slightly different on nuances that we haven't captured in the data? so I think again, the data are important. We use them, but it's also important to get the real time feedback, the individual, those one-on-ones that will give you the, you know, maybe the soul that you're looking for, especially as a marketer, to actually nail it and get the message that resonates with the people.
Lee (13:59)
I think, Max, what I'm hearing you say, and you tell me if I'm right or wrong on this, is there's a difference between data and strategy. Data is critical, right? But what do you do with that data? What are the decisions that you're going to be making from that is different than the data itself? And I think separating the two and understanding the differences is really critical.
Max (14:19)
Yeah, 100%. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely right. But again, also it's the strategy, but how do you go beyond the strategy, right? And action the strategy, because again, the strategy is great, but the minute is, it has to be applicable. It has to work for your customers, right? And that's what we're trying to do every day.
Lee (14:28)
Yeah.
So Max, once you say actions, you're speaking my language here. So I appreciate that. So Max, speaking of, you're in this global organization. You have all these stakeholders. And sometimes you bring external people into the process. But from your perspective, when you're working with outside partners on strategic initiatives, what makes those partnerships effective, right? Because you're already taking a complicated global team with different pieces to it, and you're bringing an external partner in. So how do you make sure that becomes effective for you as well?
Max (15:20)
First, you need to take the best, right? That's a given.
Lee (15:22)
I appreciate it, Max. The check's in the mail.
Max (15:27)
I think, but, but really, I truly believe this is, this is where it starts. I think too often we select partners based on their resume, but just like any candidates, the resume is important to work, you know, the background and the experience are important, but shared values are equally important. And I truly believe that is important for internal candidates as well as partners, because my next point would be or is that partners should be treated the same way you treat your employees and your teammates and stakeholders, etc I think embedding the partners, being open, share as much as you can. Of course, there are some compliance and regulatory and legal limitations sometimes. But the reality is when you can share all of this, when you can be very open and get them access to everything including the buildings, right? Going into the buildings, meeting the people, meeting the team, feeling the culture, the vibe, the environment is critical. Then like most of the, you know, big part of the work, I'd say more than 50 % of the work is done because there will be, they will, again, back to your question on culture, they will feel part of the team, part of this culture. They will buy into it because we share values and their work will be easier.
And so your work will be easier. I think the second part, mean, very sounds cliche and been told many times is actually on us to brief our partners with high quality. need to have, we expect a lot from partners. need to, you know, we have high expectations on the work that needs to be delivered. never, we never happy. We want always more, etc.
But we need to start with ourselves. need to look at ourselves. We need to do this introspection. And have we helped them? Have we given them everything? It was the brief clear. Was the brief ambitious enough? Did we put a lot of work behind it? There are a lot of companies that are doing that extremely well. They have like this written communication culture where, you know, if you can put in on brief if you can write a PR statement on the back of the work you're doing.
Then it means that it's important and it means that the way it's framed whoever you work with, quality will be the outcome. And I think this is something that we need to do. We need to do more and more holistically as a marketing function, not only like at Visa, but marketers in general should pay much more time on preparing the work, giving, you're really putting the hard work at the beginning to make the journey much more enjoyable, but also the outcomes much more impactful. So I think that is really important. And...
And, agree or be open to be challenged. And again, it's probably down to the value, but when your partners challenge you, when they, need to, we need to be open to that. We need to celebrate it. We need to expect that, you know, the work that will be delivered or the answer that will be given. We'll probably challenge us, challenge our point of view, challenge our thinking.
Because similarly, the way we want it internally, when we bring the stakeholders in products, sales, etc into the work we do, we're doing for our clients. We want partners to do the same thing for, to us. Challenge those point of view and help us like, you know, to, raise the bar. And I think that's the, you, choose the word partners and I love it. For me, this is what they are. They're not suppliers. They're not just like, know, it's not just a transactional relationship.
It's actually a partnership. And as a partner, what you expect from a partner in your personal life, at work, etc is to challenge you, is to help you to reach the next level. And I think that's super important.
Lee (19:37)
Max, I love everything you said because I feel like these values as marketeers have been eroding from an industry and I think they're critical to success especially when we look at the client agency models have have changed evolved a lot for the better but the behaviors also have evolved and not always for the better so I think your points about treating partners as partners as team members critical spending the time on the brief upfront making putting all the hard work there is Critical, you know being open to being challenged. That's why you want a partner right? Otherwise you just do it all yourself But having that open mind is critical. Otherwise, what's the point? So I love these points you made because I feel like as an industry, we're slowly walking away from them, but it's critical for all of our success.
Max (20:34)
And also, you know, on being, on being challenged, it's also back to the point of authenticity, is being humble and, being honest, right? I don't know everything far from it. I'm not a genius, far from it, but I feel like, you know, at least if I am open and if I'm, you know, ready to accept that people will find issues in my reasoning or, you know, gaps in the way we want to do marketing or the way we want to address our clients' challenges or the way we execute our campaigns, etc. I feel like that's, you that will help us. Normally it will help me as an individual and a professional, but it will help us as a team, as a company to actually do better work.
Lee (21:21)
Yeah. Max, my next question you kind of answered, you've actually been, I feel like putting on a master class for global CMOs right now. And I'm not just blowing smoke. I really think some of the things we talked about already are so critical to how do you run a successful global marketing organization, or not just marketing, just a global organization. But I guess the last question within this lens is,
Max (21:30)
I wish.
Lee (21:46)
Is there any additional advice you would give CMOs who run global organizations when, specifically when it comes to creating a working organization culture and you've really hit on a lot already, so don't feel free to add, don't feel like forced to add to this, but is there any additional advice I guess we wanna give here?
Max (22:05)
I think we talked a lot about different things that I truly believe in.
There is one thing maybe that we haven't touched on is basically what we do every day in marketing, which is we know that if we want a message to resonate with our clients, probably need to expose the clients. Our message should be exposed to the clients like 10 times or 20 times, whatever the latest science is on this one. And sometimes we probably don't do it enough with our stakeholders, with our teams.
And this is really, really critical. Any opportunities we have when we are together, when we have those moments, ⁓ know, restating why we're here, what we're here for, what we're trying to achieve collectively, but also where are we on this journey ⁓ is super important. And for example, in my team, created, you know, the business as they have their QBRs in every business that you have. Well, then we created our QMR.
Lee (23:00)
Thanks for your time.
Max (23:10)
And so every quarter we review like the marketing performance. Not only what has been done, what's coming, but also what has been done and get the learnings from it. So take the time to reflect on this, to celebrate those moments and use those moments to share, know, reshare the strategy and how we're delivering against it is super important. And that's also the reason why I believe in the OKR framework. It hasn't been invented by Visa. A lot of companies are using it. But it is very critical because it's a really good way on a regular basis to look at how you're delivering against those objectives, but also to be very agile. And what I love about the OKRs at Visa is they're not set in stone, right? They evolve over time. You have this opportunity to evolve the OKRs as the business evolves, as the priorities evolve, etc and that is absolutely amazing because it shows you that the strategy is as good as you know, the planning action. And so it's, it's, it's a permanent work and evolution. And I think that's, that's really important. So again, a very long answer, but I feel like these two things are probably the two things that we haven't necessarily touched on, but they are very important.
Lee (24:22)
Love it. My last question for you, and I ask all my guests this question, is that if you could take on any issue in the world and use marketing to help solve it, what would be the issue and how would you use marketing to help solve it?
Max (24:39)
Great question. ⁓ Look, there are many, many things I'd love to be part of to actually fix a lot of the problems that the world has. Recently, in a soon to come episode of our podcast, we talked to a fintech that was helping migrants around the world.
Lee (24:40)
Yes.
Max (25:04)
I could take this one, I'd love to help with this one. And I think in a lot of the discussions that we're having with a lot of people, with a lot of our clients, when I joined this industry, I didn't know anything about payments. I didn't know anything about what it was doing. And actually I probably had a very negative idea about the world of finance, and you see that as the kind of greedy and shady type of environment. But actually, when you go into this, this industry, it honestly grew into me big time. And there is one thing that we keep talking about our clients, our podcast guests, our colleagues, etc. is financial literacy. And you will ask me, is that a cause? Actually, it is. And I have kids, have kids, they, you know, they grow up in a very I would say privileged environments, have everything they want and they go to a good school and everything. And the reality is, what I realized is even at school, nobody tells you about the importance of payment, the importance of funds, the importance of how are you going to manage this part of your life, which is so important, right? And today with this, you can solve many different causes. So we talked to this FinTech helping migrants. The number one purpose is to help with financial literacy, is to give them access to the financial system, but giving them access with the financial system, with the education that goes with it. So they save the little that they receive. They spend wisely, you know, how they receive. They use the right technologies to make sure that, you know, they're not scammed and nobody is trying to steal from them.
But that is true for the migrants. It's true for any businesses that is trying to help, any NGOs, any government. So I think there was a big thing, an underlying theme, if you will, around financial literacy that can actually help a lot of people around the world. And it helps with one thing is inclusion. And I think that's, for me, it's super important. And whatever is your thing, inclusion and sense of belonging are important and actually money is usually part of the equation.
Lee (27:32)
I love that answer. I remember when I was in grad school, we studied micro banking, but they never put in the financial literacy to go with it, right? Which is why like some of these big banks were charging 25 % interest for nine month loans and all that kind of stuff. Financial literacy is that next step. It is that next chapter. And how do we ensure the larger population is financially literate? I love that answer, Max. Well.
Max (28:00)
I hope it helps the people and honestly if people can get educated on it, fine the time, there are lots of different things, but just find the time to learn about it and really try to understand in whatever we do, how the world of payment is connected to it and how it can help you, will help you no matter what you do. Being a creator, you know, ahead of FinTech at school, that will help.
Lee (28:33)
Love it. Max, thank you so much for coming on to Breaking the Mold. I had high expectations. You exceeded those high expectations. So I'm so glad that you were able to come on.
Max (28:44)
No, thank you, Lee. I appreciate it. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to actually share that with you. I loved it. Really enjoyed it.
Lee (28:52)
Thanks, Max.
Max (28:53)
Thank you.