The US-Europe translation problem
Every year, smart American consumer brands land in Europe with a great product, a proven playbook, and genuine optimism. And every year, a meaningful number of them quietly miss their numbers and conclude that Europe is harder than expected.
It's usually not the product.
It's not the market either.
It's the playbook.
One GTM motion. One retail strategy. One org structure. One set of messages. Applied to 25 markets that differ in language, retail landscape, regulatory environment, consumer behaviour, and cultural expectation in ways that matter enormously for how you sell.
Europe is not a market. It's a collection of markets wearing a single name for the convenience of American balance sheets.
The brands that win here treat EMEA as a strategic capability, not a sales region. They put real leaders in place with real authority, not just execution mandates. They build rhythms that keep HQ and the region genuinely aligned, not just technically connected.
The translation problem also runs the other direction. European teams regularly fail to make themselves legible to US leadership. The numbers land without context. The narrative gets lost. Trust erodes on both sides, and nobody quite knows why.
I've spent 15 years sitting in that gap. It's a solvable problem. But you need someone who's actually lived on both sides of it.