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Leslie Lee
Company
Deel
Location
San Francisco, California, United States
Bio
Recognized as one of the top 50 women leaders in Marketing in 2024 and 2025 by Women We Admire. Proven marketing leader with 25 years of B2B and B2C marketing experience in Enterprise Software and Financial Services. Held senior leadership positions in companies with revenue from $50M to $3B+. Experience building marketing teams at start-ups, shepherding through IPO, and scaling to several thousand employees.
Recognized as one of the top...
description
Deel is the all-in-one Global People Platform that simplifies and streamlines every aspect of managing an international workforce—from culture and onboarding, to local payroll and compliance. Our industry-leading suite of HR tools, payroll solutions, mobility services, and compliance expertise makes it possible for companies of all sizes to scale globally with unmatched speed and flexibility.
Deel is the all-in-one Global People...
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Actionable Takeaways
Establish trust by understanding what the CEO cares about most and proving marketing’s alignment with those KPIs.
Instead of spreading your team thin across many small trade shows, focus on fewer high-impact events with a stronger presence.
Talent exists beyond Silicon Valley—find and develop high-potential marketers from diverse global backgrounds.
In a remote-first world, set clear expectations early on and give your team the trust and flexibility to execute autonomously.
Use AI for content creation, creative ideation, and translation to cut down manual work and accelerate campaigns.
Conversation Highlights
In this episode of The Remote CMO, Leslie Lee, VP of Marketing at Deel, shares her experience in leading a remote marketing team for a global HR and payroll platform. Leslie discusses Deel’s journey as a remote-first company, the challenges of managing a globally distributed team, and the strategies they’ve used to scale while staying customer-centric.
Key Topics Discussed:
- How Deel became the fastest-growing B2B startup, embracing remote work from inception.
- Leslie’s biggest marketing failure and the lessons learned about community building.
- The differences between leading marketing at Deel vs. Atlassian and adapting to remote-first cultures.
- Strategies Deel uses to build trust in a fast-moving, remote environment.
- Deel’s approach to hiring global talent outside of traditional tech hubs.
- How Leslie manages a 60-person marketing team across multiple time zones and cultures.
- Why Deel prioritizes customer-centricity, with leadership directly engaging with customers.
- How AI tools like MidJourney and content creation automation are helping Deel’s marketing team.
