It’s 3:17 AM and I’m on a call with the APAC team. I’m wearing pyjama bottoms and a dress shirt because nobody needs to see below the camera line. My coffee’s gone cold. Again. And I’ve got a leadership meeting in four hours where I need to look competent.

Welcome to global marketing leadership. It’s not quite the glamorous “international career” that people may imagine, but it’s taught me more about leadership, resilience, and creative problem-solving than any other role I’ve held.

Nobody talks about managing teams across time zones that never overlap. Nobody mentions the creative solutions you develop when your working day spans 14 hours. And nobody prepares you for the unique satisfaction of building something that operates seamlessly across continents.

The Time Zone Mathematics That Can Break People

When I took my first global marketing role back in 2014, I thought I understood what managing across time zones meant. False.

Here’s the maths: London to Singapore is 8 hours. London to San Francisco is 8 hours the other direction. Your working day needs to cover at least some overlap with both. That means roughly 6 AM to 10 PM.

Every. Single. Day.

The reality is that global marketing leadership means accepting that your “work hours” are now suggestion rather than reality. Some days you’re dealing with the Americas until midnight. Other days you’re on calls with APAC at 5 AM. Most days you’re doing both.

I’ve had calls with Sydney whilst making my kids’ breakfast. I’ve reviewed campaign performance with Atlanta during family dinner. My kids have learned that “Daddy has a call” means disappearing for an hour at unpredictable times.

However, the upside is that you become incredibly efficient at decision-making. When you’re managing across time zones, you learn to communicate with absolute clarity because you can’t afford the back-and-forth of ambiguous requests. You develop judgment that lets you make calls with 80% of the information because waiting for 100% means the opportunity passes.

The time zone challenge forces you to become a better leader, whether you planned to or not.

The Cultural Complexity That Makes You Better

Marketing is contextual. What works in Manchester doesn’t work in Munich. What resonates in New York falls completely flat in Tokyo.

I’ve launched campaigns that were culturally tone-deaf in markets I didn’t understand well enough. I’ve used references that made perfect sense in UK context but meant nothing (or worse, something offensive) elsewhere. Expensive mistakes that made me a more thoughtful marketer.

The gaps extend beyond campaign creative. Work styles differ dramatically. Communication preferences vary. Meeting culture is completely different.

In UK and US, we’re relatively comfortable with direct feedback and healthy conflict. In several Asian cultures, public disagreement is avoided and feedback happens privately. I’ve run meetings where American team members thought we reached consensus through robust debate, whilst Asian team members felt uncomfortable and unheard.

British understatement causes constant problems. When I say “that’s quite good,” I mean it’s excellent. Americans often think I’m being lukewarm. When I say “I have some concerns,” I mean fix this immediately. My APAC colleagues think I’m mentioning a minor issue.

Scottish humour and sarcasm go down like a shit sandwich in most cultures. What I think is witty banter gets interpreted as genuine criticism. I’ve learned to save the sarcasm for one-on-one conversations with people who get the context.

But here’s what makes it worthwhile – you develop cultural intelligence that makes you effective in most markets. You learn to adapt communication style and navigate complexity that most marketers never encounter.

Decision-Making Across Time Zones

You’re also faced with the reality that you’re constantly making decisions without your team. This sounds like a problem. However, it actually forced me to become a significantly better leader.

It’s 2 PM London time. My Americas team is just starting their day. My APAC team finished hours ago. Some of my EMEA team are wrapping up. Someone needs to make a decision about budget reallocation that affects all three regions, and there’s literally no time when everyone’s awake to discuss it.

So I make the call. Alone. Then spend the next 18 hours dealing with the aftermath across three different continents, each region discovering the decision at different times.

In a regional role, you make decisions collaboratively. You gather your team, discuss options, build consensus. In a global role, that’s often impossible. By the time you’ve consulted everyone across time zones, the opportunity has passed.

You’re forced to make judgment calls with incomplete input. Then you deal with the tension between “why didn’t you ask me?” and “why did you wait so long?”

But this constraint teaches you invaluable skills on how to communicate decisions with context so people understand the thinking even if they weren’t consulted. How to build trust that lets teams operate independently. How to document decision frameworks that empower regional leaders to make good calls without you.

This decisiveness serves you well in every future role.

The Myth of “Follow the Sun” Operations

Corporate leadership loves “follow the sun” operations. Marketing that never sleeps! Campaigns running 24/7! Global coverage!

In theory, it sounds brilliant. In practice, it means somebody is usually always working at a terrible hour.

The follow-the-sun model assumes clean handoffs between regions. Real life is messier. APAC finishes their day and hands off to EMEA, except there are questions and the APAC team is asleep. EMEA hands off to Americas, but the Americas team doesn’t have context on decisions made whilst they were offline.

I’ve watched critical campaigns fall apart in the gaps between time zones. Not because anyone did anything wrong, but because handoffs aren’t clean and context gets lost.

Someone in San Francisco makes a tactical decision that seems reasonable. By the time APAC wakes up, they’ve started executing based on different assumptions. Now we’ve got two regions executing different strategies because nobody was awake at the same time to align.

The “always on” model also means someone is always dealing with emergencies at inconvenient hours. A campaign breaks in Australia at midnight London time. Do we wait 8 hours for APAC to wake up, letting it stay broken through prime business hours? Or do I wake up my EMEA team to fix a problem in a region they don’t own?

Neither answer is good. Both happen regularly.

The Relationship Challenges You Can’t Solve

Building relationships is hard enough when you work in the same office. Building relationships across time zones and cultures is exponentially harder.

I’ve managed multiple people for over five years that I’ve met in person exactly once. I’ve had team members I’ve only ever seen on Zoom. I’ve built “close working relationships” where 90% of our communication happens asynchronously through Slack messages neither of us reads at optimal times.

It’s nearly impossible to build the casual rapport that happens naturally in offices. The random hallway conversations. The coffee chats. The after-work drinks where teams actually bond.

None of that exists in global teams. Every interaction is scheduled. Every conversation is transactional. The spontaneous moments that build genuine connections don’t happen when you’re separated by 8,000 miles and 8 hours.

This creates real management challenges. It’s harder to spot when someone’s struggling. It’s harder to read tone through text. It’s harder to know if someone’s disengaged or just dealing with bad internet.

The hardest part is that everyone on the team experiences this differently. APAC team members feel isolated because most decisions happen in EMEA/Americas time zones. Americas team members feel excluded from morning EMEA discussions. EMEA is exhausted trying to bridge both regions.

There’s no perfect solution. Just constant adjustment and the gnawing feeling that you’re letting someone down regardless of what you do.

The Health Cost That Compounds Over Time

Let me be brutally honest – managing global teams will damage your health if you let it. The key phrase is “if you let it.”

The sleep disruption is real and cumulative. A few 5 AM calls per week don’t seem terrible. But do that for months and you’re operating on chronic sleep deprivation. Your cognitive function suffers. Your decision-making degrades.

I’ve made terrible decisions because I was exhausted. I’ve been short with people because I’d had four hours of sleep. I’ve missed important details because my brain was functioning on fumes.

The stress is constant and low-grade. There’s always something happening somewhere. Your phone is never quiet. Even on holiday, you’re half-monitoring Slack because something might explode whilst you’re offline.

I have three young kids. They’ve watched me take calls during dinner more times than I can count. They know that when I say “just five minutes,” it usually means half an hour. My partner has dealt with more interrupted plans, cancelled family time, and middle-of-the-night phone calls than anyone should have to tolerate.

But nobody wants to hear you complain about it. You’ve got a senior role managing global teams. You’re well compensated. It sounds glamorous.

So you don’t mention it. You just quietly deal with the chronic stress, disrupted sleep, and slow erosion of work-life boundaries whilst pretending everything’s fine.

Unless you build systems to protect yourself. Which brings us to what actually works.

The Strategies That Actually Work

These aren’t theoretical. These are the systems that have kept me functional whilst managing global teams for years.

Ruthlessly Protect Your Sleep

Set hard boundaries on some nights. Don’t take APAC calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Don’t take Americas calls on Mondays and Wednesdays. Yes, sometimes things wait.

The alternative is chronic sleep deprivation that makes you useless to everyone. Better to be fully available some days and completely unavailable others than half-present all the time.

When I implemented this, I worried it would damage relationships. Instead, my teams adapted quickly and regional leaders stepped up. Forced unavailability builds stronger regional leadership.

Empower Regional Decision-Making

Stop trying to make every decision yourself. Build regional leaders who can make calls without you. Yes, this means accepting some inconsistency across regions. That inconsistency is cheaper than burnout.

Document decision-making frameworks so regional teams can make good calls without waiting for you.

This was the single most important change I made. My APAC marketing director doesn’t need me for daily decisions. The Americas lead can handle most issues without escalation.

Embrace Asynchronous Communication

Not everything needs a meeting. Most things don’t need a meeting. Record video updates that people can watch in their time zone. Use Slack threads for discussions that can happen over hours.

Written communication is harder but scales better across time zones.

Schedule Strategic Overlap

While most work can be asynchronous, some things require real-time collaboration. Identify the critical few meetings that need live participation and schedule them at times that are merely inconvenient for everyone rather than impossible for anyone.

A 7 AM London call is early but manageable. A 4 PM London call is late afternoon for EMEA, morning for west cost America, and evening for APAC. Everyone’s a bit annoyed but nobody’s working at 2 AM.

I did these strategic overlap calls once or twice a week maximum. Everything else happens asynchronously.

Build Strong Regional Leadership

The single most important thing is hiring excellent regional leaders who can operate independently.

When I hire for global team roles now, I optimize for independent decision-making ability and cultural intelligence over specific experience. Someone who can make good calls with incomplete information whilst navigating cultural complexity is worth three people who need constant direction.

Communicate Context Obsessively

When time zones mean people can’t ask clarifying questions in real-time, you need to over-communicate context. Don’t just share decisions but share the thinking behind decisions.

This helps distributed teams make good local decisions that align with global strategy even when you’re not available to consult.

Accept Good Enough

Perfect global alignment is impossible. Accept that different regions will do things differently and that’s okay.

The goal isn’t perfect consistency but effective local execution that rolls up to global objectives. Sometimes Singapore runs campaigns differently than San Francisco. As long as both are driving results, let it go.

What Makes It Worth It

Global marketing leadership is not sustainable long-term for most people. The burnout rate is real. Most people last 3-5 years before moving to regional roles.

Your family may pay a price. You’ll never feel like you’re doing enough. And someone is always being underserved.

But the learning is invaluable.

Managing global teams teaches you things you can’t learn any other way. Cultural intelligence that makes you effective in any market. Asynchronous leadership that works when you can’t be present. Distributed decision-making that scales beyond what any single person could accomplish.

You learn to build systems that work without you, which is the ultimate leadership skill. You develop judgment that lets you make calls with incomplete information. You become comfortable with ambiguity and complexity that would paralyze most leaders.

When you can successfully launch campaigns across five continents, each adapted for local culture whilst maintaining strategic consistency, you’ve developed capabilities that are genuinely rare and valuable.

The satisfaction of building something that operates seamlessly across time zones and cultures, of developing leaders who can run their regions independently, of solving problems that most marketers never encounter… that’s genuinely rewarding.

The question isn’t whether global team leadership is difficult. It absolutely is. The question is whether the skills you develop, the impact you drive, and the challenge of the work itself is worth the cost.

The Decision You Need to Make

If you’re considering a global marketing leadership role, be honest about whether you can actually do this.

Do you have family commitments that require predictable hours? Global marketing leadership isn’t compatible with that.

Do you need work-life boundaries to maintain your mental health? Those boundaries will be constantly tested.

Are you uncomfortable making decisions without full consultation? You’ll need to get comfortable fast, though you’ll develop this skill quicker than you think.

I’m not trying to discourage people. Global marketing leadership can be incredibly rewarding. Building teams across cultures, driving impact at scale, solving complex problems that most marketers never encounter… it’s genuinely exciting work that develops capabilities you can’t build any other way.

But go in with eyes open. The 3 AM calls are real. The decision-making isolation is real. The health impact can be real. The strain on relationships is real.

The systems I’ve shared above make it manageable. The skills you develop make it worthwhile. The impact you drive makes it meaningful.

If you’re still excited despite all that, then welcome to the club. It’s a small club of slightly unhinged people who’ve convinced themselves that managing across time zones is somehow a reasonable life choice.

We’ll be awake at 3 AM if you need us. We’re always awake at 3 AM.

Godspeed.