Why Localization Belongs In The Boardroom
December 11, 2025
Boards obsess over international revenue and growth, then often starve the one function that makes customers actually buy in market. That same myopic view is not just short sighted. It is quietly costing organizations millions in untapped revenue. In this episode of In other words, Nataly Kelly, Chief Marketing Officer at Zappi, joins host Jason Hemingway to explore why localization deserves a permanent seat in the boardroom, how to tie multilingual strategy directly to revenue growth, and the key tactics to build cultural fluency across global markets.
Boards obsess over international revenue and growth, then often starve the one function that makes customers actually buy in market. That same myopic view is not just short sighted. It is quietly costing organizations millions in untapped revenue. In this episode of In other words, Nataly Kelly, Chief Marketing Officer at Zappi, joins host Jason Hemingway to explore why localization deserves a permanent seat in the boardroom, how to tie multilingual strategy directly to revenue growth, and the key tactics to build cultural fluency across global markets.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to tie localization directly to revenue growth
- Why internal stakeholder relationships matter more than CEO access
- The critical difference between translation and true cultural adaptation
- How to identify high-impact localization opportunities by partnering with teams during their own project cycles
- Why AI removes translation constraints but amplifies the need for human strategy
Nataly Kelly is one of the best known voices in global growth and localization strategy, with boardroom level experience scaling international marketing in B2B tech. At HubSpot, she helped drive ARR from $170M to $1.7B by leading marketing, international strategy and globalization, turning localization into a lever for acquisition, adoption, and retention across 120 plus countries. She is now CMO at Zappi, founder of Born to Be Global, a regular Harvard Business Review contributor, and co author of Brand Global, Adapt Local.
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Highlights and YouTube Chapters:
- 00:00 Introduction
- 02:44 From Interpreter to CMO
- 04:44 Localization: Cost Center or Growth Driver?
- 06:09 Making the Business Case
- 08:14 Speak CEO, Not Localization
- 10:27 Influence Is Internal Marketing
- 13:59 Cultural Fluency in Action
- 16:46 Overlooked But High Impact
- 26:10 Strategy Before Tech
- 28:27 The Real KPI
- 34:14 AI Unlocks Scale, But Adds New Constraints
- 36:24 Evolving Roles in the AI Era
- 38:48 One Word for Global Growth: Interconnectedness.
Episode Resources:
- Nataly Kelly, CMO at Zappi
- Zappi Website and LinkedIn
- Born to Be Global Website and LinkedIn
- Jason Hemingway, CMO at Phrase
- Phrase Website