How do you actually structure your in-house team when you're managing both ru and us influencer campaigns?

In-House Marketing Masters (US-Based)
1

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, and I’m hitting a wall. Right now, my team is spread across Moscow and New York, and we’re trying to manage influencer campaigns for a Russian-rooted D2C brand expanding into the US market. The problem isn’t just timezone differences—it’s that our workflows feel completely siloed.

On the Russian side, we have creative briefs, influencer relationships, and approval cycles that work pretty smoothly. But when we tried to replicate that for US campaigns, everything broke down. Our US partners didn’t understand the creative direction, timelines felt chaotic, and halfway through Q3, we realized we were duplicating work across teams.

I’ve learned from talking to other CMOs that the real challenge isn’t hiring—it’s alignment. You need people who can work across both markets without everything turning into a game of telephone. Some teams split it by market (someone owns Russia, someone owns US), others do it by function (one person owns all content, another owns partnerships). Neither felt quite right for us.

I’m also realizing that tools matter. We switched from email threads to a shared project management system, and honestly, that alone cut our turnaround time by almost 40%. But I’m still not sure if we’re structured optimally.

So here’s what I’m wrestling with: when you’re managing both markets, do you organize by function or by geography? And how do you actually keep one unified brand voice when your team is literally on different continents?

2

Oh, this is such a real challenge! I think the key here is that you need one person who speaks both languages—not just literally, but culturally and strategically—acting as the connective tissue. I’ve seen teams that tried to keep everything completely separate just end up with two brands instead of one.

What worked really well for a few brands I’ve partnered with was having a “creative director” role that sits in the middle. This person understands the brand voice deeply and acts as the final checkpoint for all briefs before they go out—whether it’s to Moscow or New York. They’re not involved in day-to-day execution, but they make sure nothing slips through that doesn’t feel authentically like the brand.

The other thing: organize by function, not geography. One person owns influencer partnerships for both regions, one person owns content production, etc. Then you pair them with regional coordinators who handle local nuances. This way, you have consistency in how you approach the work, but you also have people who understand local context.

Do you have someone on your team who’s comfortable working across both markets, or is that part of the problem?

3

From a data perspective, I’d actually push back on overthinking the structure. What matters most is that you’re tracking the same metrics and holding the same performance standards across both markets. I’ve analyzed dozens of campaigns—Russian and US—and the teams that struggle most are the ones where nobody knows if they’re measuring the same thing.

Here’s what I see: set up a shared analytics dashboard that both teams look at daily. Not separate reports—one unified view. Track engagement rate, conversion rate, CAC, ROAS, all the same KPIs. When your team sees real numbers instead of just vibes, the organizational structure matters way less. People naturally align around shared objectives.

As for structure itself, I’d go functional. But here’s the detail: hire for overlap. Get people on your team who’ve worked in both markets, or at least understand both. That experience is worth paying for. It reduces handoff friction by like 50%.

One more thing: document your approval workflow. Write down exactly what goes to whom. You’d be shocked how much chaos comes from people not knowing who makes the final call. Put it in a wiki or a shared doc. Boring, but it works.

4

Man, I feel this deeply. When we scaled from Russia to Berlin and then to the US, we made mistakes here that cost us time and money.

Truth is, I started with geography (someone in Moscow, someone in New York), and it was a disaster. Then I realized: I was treating Moscow and New York operations like they were separate companies. They’re not. They’re the same brand.

What actually worked for us was hiring a COO-type person whose only job is process and alignment. Not glamorous, but they literally sit between teams and make sure nothing gets lost in translation. They own the tools, the workflows, the checkpoints. We also started doing one weekly sync (I know, timezone nightmare, but we recorded it) where both teams aligned on that week’s priorities.

For structure, go functional. One VP of influencer partnerships, one VP of creative, one VP of performance. Each owns their function across both regions. Then hire regional managers who report to them but handle local execution.

But honestly? The structure matters less than culture. If people on your team don’t believe in working together—if there’s friction between Moscow and New York—no org chart fixes it. We had to do a lot of intentional team building and transparent communication about goals. Once people understood they were on the same team, not competing teams, things clicked.

How’s the relationship between your Moscow and New York sides right now? Are they actually aligned, or is there tension?

5

I run an agency that manages exactly this challenge for clients all day. Here’s my framework: organize by function, but hire strategically at the manager level.

Your structure should have one head of influencer partnerships who owns strategy and relationships across both markets. One head of creative production. One head of analytics. Three roles, clear accountability. But here’s the critical part: each of these people needs either Russian and English fluency or the ability to manage people who have it.

Then, below them, you have regional coordinators who handle the day-to-day executional work. These people are regional—one in Moscow, one in New York—but they report functionally to the head of their discipline, not geographically.

What this does: forces strategic alignment at the top (hard to have two different strategies when one person owns the function), but allows operational flexibility at the regional level (locals handle local relationships and logistics).

Implement quarterly business reviews where both regions present performance against the same KPIs. Public accountability works wonders.

Last thing: invest in asynchronous communication and documentation. Not everything needs a meeting. Write briefs, decisions, changes down. Slack is great for quick stuff, but put the real thinking into shared docs. We use Notion for this—keeps everything searchable and reference-able.

How big is your team right now? That might change my recommendation slightly.

6

This is a classic organizational design problem, and it’s bigger than influencer marketing—it’s about how you structure any cross-functional, multi-market operation.

Here’s my thinking: you want a matrix, but a very simple one. Functionally, you have leaders who own strategy and performance across all markets (partnerships, creative, analytics). Geographically, you have regional managers who own execution and relationships in their market. They’re accountable to the functional leader for performance, but they report to the regional manager for day-to-day direction.

The mistake most companies make: they over-complicate this. You don’t need a massive structure. You need clarity about who makes what decision and by when.

Where I’d focus: create a decision-making framework. Write down the major decision categories (creative approval, influencer selection, budget allocation, etc.) and explicitly say who decides and by what process. Sounds mechanical, but it eliminates 70% of organizational friction.

Second, implement shared OKRs. The Moscow team and New York team don’t have separate goals—they have shared quarterly objectives with clear metrics. This is subtle but powerful. It forces alignment at the psychological level.

Third, invest in one tool stack and make everyone use it the same way. Not three different project management tools, not email for some decisions and Slack for others. One system, one workflow, one source of truth. This alone will cut your coordination overhead significantly.

The final piece: quarterly all-hands where you present results from both regions using the same metrics and the same framework. When everyone’s looking at the same data, politics dissolve faster.

What metrics are you currently using to measure success across both regions? Are they consistent?