Building & Managing High-Performing LATAM Teams

For more than two decades, I have helped American and multinational companies build businesses and teams across Latin America and other international markets. That has included supporting companies as they expanded into new markets, established local operations, and, increasingly, built LATAM-based teams to support their U.S. and global businesses. I have hired local professionals, managed multicultural teams, and worked with customers and colleagues across North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

One lesson has become increasingly clear to me: building a successful team in Latin America is not simply a matter of finding good people in a lower-cost market.

The difficult part isn't finding the talent.

The difficult part is building an environment where that talent can perform, grow and become genuinely integrated into the business.

That distinction is becoming more important as U.S. companies increasingly look to Latin America for remote talent. Recent data from Nearshore Americas has shown strong international demand for professionals in countries such as Colombia and Brazil, including customer support and customer success roles alongside technology positions. 

The question, then, is no longer simply “Where can I find talent?”

It is:

“How do I build a high-performing team with that talent?”

Here are the lessons I would share with any U.S. company starting that journey.

1. Start with the business need, not the country

One of the first mistakes companies make is choosing the location before defining the role.

“We want to hire in Colombia.”

“Should we build our team in Brazil?”

“Is Mexico better for this function?”

Those can be useful questions, but they shouldn't be the first ones.

The first question should be:

What do we need this team to accomplish?

A company looking for Project Manager may have a very different location strategy from one building Customer Success, Technical Support, Sales Development or RevOps teams.

The talent market should follow the business requirement.

I learned this while working across multiple international markets. There is no single “best” country for every function. The right location depends on the combination of skills, language, experience, availability, time zone and business environment required for the role.

The goal isn't to build a LATAM team.

The goal is to build the right team, and LATAM may be where the right talent is.

2. Don't hire only for technical skills

A strong resumé can tell you whether someone has done a job before.

It doesn't tell you whether they will succeed in your organization.

This becomes particularly important when building distributed teams.

When I evaluate professionals for international teams, I look beyond technical competence. I want to understand how someone communicates, how independently they operate, how they respond to ambiguity, whether they take ownership and how they collaborate with people from different backgrounds.

Those characteristics become even more important when a manager and employee are thousands of miles apart.

A technically excellent professional who requires constant supervision may be a poor fit for a distributed organization.

Meanwhile, someone who combines technical ability with autonomy, communication and ownership can become one of the strongest members of a global team.

Hire for the way the person will work, not only for what they already know.

3. Hire for the qualities that predict future performance

Experience matters. But I have learned not to confuse experience with potential.

When we evaluate candidates, I want to understand not only what they have accomplished, but how they became successful and how likely they are to continue growing.

There are a few characteristics I pay particular attention to.

Coachability. How does the person respond to feedback? Can they listen, process a different point of view and adjust their approach? One of the best indicators is not whether someone gives the perfect answer in an interview, but whether their answer improves after receiving feedback.

Curiosity. Strong candidates ask good questions. They want to understand the business, the customer and the reason behind the work. Curiosity is particularly important in distributed teams because managers cannot anticipate every situation or provide instructions for every decision.

A history of success. I look for evidence that someone has performed well relative to the environment they were in. That doesn't necessarily mean they need to have held the exact same title before. Success can show up in many ways: being promoted, exceeding a goal, taking on additional responsibility, solving a difficult problem or becoming someone others relied on.

Learning agility. The best people can absorb new information, connect ideas and become productive in unfamiliar situations. This often matters more than having experience with every tool or system a company currently uses.

And finally, work ethic. Talent matters, but so does the willingness to prepare, follow through and consistently do the work required to produce a result. I look for examples of persistence and personal accountability rather than simply asking someone whether they are a hard worker.

None of these qualities replaces technical competence.

But when two candidates have comparable skills, I will usually favor the person who demonstrates coachability, curiosity, a pattern of achievement, the ability to learn quickly and a strong work ethic.
Skills can be developed.

Those underlying characteristics often determine how far someone will go.

4. Don't create a “LATAM team.” Create one global team.

This may be the most important lesson of all.

I've managed multicultural teams with professionals working across different countries and regions. The strongest teams were not the ones where everyone worked in the same location.

They were the ones where everyone understood that they were working toward the same objectives.

It is surprisingly easy for companies to create two organizations without realizing it:

The U.S. team

and

The LATAM team.

The moment that happens, problems start to appear.

Information flows differently. Meetings become divided. Career opportunities become uneven. One group becomes the “core” organization and the other becomes the “remote” organization.

That is not a location problem.

It is a management problem.

A LATAM professional should have the same clarity around:

• company objectives;
• team KPIs;
• customer expectations;
• access to information;
• management support;
• career development;
• recognition.
  

The geography may be different. The team should not be.

5. Give people ownership, not just tasks

There is a major difference between asking someone to execute a process and giving them ownership of an outcome.

Consider Customer Success.

A company can tell a LATAM CSM:

“Handle these accounts and respond to customer requests.”

Or it can say:

“You own adoption, customer health and retention for this portfolio.”

Those are fundamentally different jobs.

The second creates accountability.

This applies across functions.

A support professional shouldn't simply be measured on the number of tickets closed. A sales development representative shouldn't simply be measured on the number of calls made. An implementation specialist shouldn't simply be measured on tasks completed.

Whenever possible, connect people's work to the outcome the business cares about.

This is especially important in international teams because ownership creates a stronger connection between the individual and the organization.

6. Don't underestimate the importance of local leadership

International expansion creates an interesting paradox.

Companies want local talent because that talent understands the local market. Yet they sometimes try to manage that talent entirely from headquarters.

I've experienced the complexity of international expansion firsthand, including establishing operations and hiring local resources in different countries. In my experience, local knowledge becomes particularly valuable when it is connected to global leadership rather than isolated from it. 

Local leaders can provide context that headquarters may not have:

how the local talent market works;
what motivates employees;
cultural nuances;
local business practices;
market-specific challenges;
how to communicate effectively with the team.
That doesn't mean creating a completely independent local organization.

It means creating a bridge between the global company and the local team.

7. Treat communication as infrastructure

When teams are distributed, communication cannot depend on people simply “figuring it out.”

It needs structure.

I've seen this repeatedly in multicultural organizations: communication problems are rarely caused by one big misunderstanding. They are usually the accumulation of dozens of small gaps.

Someone wasn't included in a meeting.

A decision wasn't documented.

A manager assumed another team had received the information.

A local employee didn't feel comfortable challenging a decision made at headquarters.

Over time, these small gaps become operational problems.

High-performing distributed teams need deliberate communication systems:

What gets communicated?

Where?

To whom?

How quickly?

Who makes the decision?

These questions may sound administrative, but they are actually part of the operating model.

8. Retention starts before the person is hired

Companies often think about retention after someone has already joined. By then, it may be too late.

Retention begins with the hiring process.

• Did the candidate understand the role?
• Were expectations realistic?
• Was the compensation structure clear?
• Did the company explain how the person would work with the U.S. team?
• Did the manager establish what success looks like?

And after hiring:

• Does the employee have a meaningful onboarding experience?
• Do they understand the company's strategy?
• Can they see a career path?
• Do they receive feedback?
• Do they feel like a member of the company rather than an external resource?

These questions matter because Latin American talent is no longer competing only for local opportunities. International remote work has expanded the number of companies competing for the same professionals.

Recent research and industry reporting also suggest that retention is increasingly influenced by factors beyond compensation, including flexibility, psychological security, trust and stability. 

Pay can attract someone. It rarely creates long-term commitment by itself.

9. Don't make cost the strategy

Cost is obviously one of the reasons companies look to Latin America.

But it should not become the entire business case.

If the only reason you're hiring in LATAM is because someone costs less than an equivalent U.S. employee, you are building a fragile strategy.

Someone will eventually offer that person more money.

A stronger business case is:

• Can I access high-quality talent, build a productive team
• Maintain proximity to my customers and business
• And do it more efficiently than I could by hiring exclusively in my home market?

That's a different question.

And it changes how you manage the team.

You're no longer looking at LATAM as a source of labor arbitrage.

You're looking at it as a strategic talent market.

The outsourcing industry itself has been wrestling with this evolution. Nearshore Americas has noted the traditional reliance on labor arbitrage while highlighting the need for the industry to move toward higher-value services and stronger talent strategies. 

10. Choose the right operating model

There isn't one correct way to build a LATAM team.

A company can:

• Use a white-box model;
• Establish its own local entity;
• Use an Employer of Record;
• Work with a staffing or outsourcing partner;
• Build a hybrid structure.
  The right answer depends on the company's size, objectives, risk tolerance, expected headcount and desired level of control.

What matters is understanding the trade-off.

If a U.S. SaaS company is hiring one or two people in LATAM and wants to move quickly, and doesn't want an embedded professional, Employer of Record may be the right choice. If the company plans to build a large, permanent operation in the region, establishing its own entity may make more sense.

But consider a company that wants to build a team of Customer Success Managers in LATAM to support its U.S. customers. It wants the professionals to work full-time and exclusively for the company, use its systems and processes, participate in its meetings, follow its culture, and be managed directly by its Customer Success leadership - but it doesn't want to establish a legal entity or take on the administrative complexity of employing people in another country.

This is where a white-box model can make sense.

The company maintains day-to-day control over the team and treats the professionals as an extension of its own organization, while the outsourcing partner handles the employment infrastructure, including contracts, payroll, local compliance, and HR administration.

For customer-facing or business-critical functions, this distinction can be particularly important. The goal isn't simply to access talent at a lower cost. It's to build a team that is deeply integrated into the company's culture, systems, and goals - while choosing an operating model that makes that possible.

The model should serve the team - not the other way around.

11. Measure the team like any other part of the business

Finally, don't create a separate definition of performance because the team is in LATAM.

If a U.S. employee is measured on revenue, customer retention, productivity or customer satisfaction, the LATAM employee should not be measured primarily on how many tasks they complete.

Measure outcomes.

For a Customer Success team:

• retention;
• expansion;
• adoption;
• customer health;
• time-to-value.

For Support:

• resolution time;
• customer satisfaction;
• escalation rate;
• first-contact resolution.

For Sales:

• qualified pipeline;
• conversion;
• revenue;
  
• sales cycle.
  

For Operations:

• productivity;
• quality;
• efficiency;
• process improvement.

The location should not determine the standard.

The real opportunity in LATAM

I've spent much of my career working across borders, building teams and operating businesses in different markets. My experience has convinced me that international expansion works best when companies stop thinking about geography as the center of the strategy.

Geography gives you access.

Hiring gives you people.

But management, integration and ownership create a high-performing team.

LATAM offers U.S. companies an increasingly sophisticated talent opportunity. Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and other markets are no longer simply sources of lower-cost labor. They can be strategic locations for customer-facing, operational, commercial and technology teams.

But companies need to approach them accordingly.

The companies that get the most from LATAM won't necessarily be the ones that hire the most people there.

They'll be the ones that build the best teams.

About the autor: 

Luiz Martins is CEO of Altrio Consulting and a technology and business executive with over 20 years of experience in international operations, sales, marketing, and team building. Throughout his career, he has managed multicultural teams across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia, established operations in international markets, and held executive leadership positions at technology and SaaS companies. His experience includes leadership roles at 1WorldSync, Danaher, and Mitsubishi. 

Continue Exploring

If you’re considering building or expanding a team in Latin America, these resources are a great place to start:

What is White-Box outsourcing
Building and Managing Remote Teams: A Guide for SaaS Leaders
LATAM Customer Success Salary Guide 2026
From First Customer to $20M ARR: Building the Customer Team That Actually Scales

Ready to explore what a LATAM team could look like for your company?Schedule a 30-minute conversation with us to discuss your hiring needs, potential roles, and how Altrio can help you find and retain exceptional talent across Latin America.