John Layfield Quotes

Expanding internationally is exciting and fun, but the hardest part is really about maintaining culture.

I don't think it's any different if I'm in the U.S. or in London. I look at operations globally.

I'm a complete globalist. I think like a global CEO. But I'm an American. I run an American company. But in order for GE to be successful in the coming years, I've gotta sell my products in every corner of the world.

A lot of companies are global.

We have a lot of people with a Western education who work in Russia and understand the international rules of business and corporate governance.

I see the level of sophistication and knowledge about business growing dramatically. Several decades ago, only a few companies thought about international business.

More and more, in any company, managers are dealing with different cultures. Companies are going global, but the teams are being divided and scattered all over the planet.

One of the criteria for a global company is that it should have a manufacturing presence in multiple countries and should not only be an exporter.

A firm, for instance, that does business in many countries of the world is driven to spend an enormous amount of time, labour, and money in providing for translation services.

All our hiring staff are trained to interview in English. They're trained to look for Westernized segments because we deal with global customers.

I met with President [Hugo] Chávez at one point, because he was very concerned that Brightstar had a 70 percent share of the Venezuelan market. He said, “Explain that to me, when you’re an American company.” I said, “No, we’re not an American company. We are a Venezuelan company, with Venezuelan employees, with a Venezuelan leader, owned by an American company, and that is very different.

A romantic or classical view of the French approach would have been to say, 'It's a French company; let no one attack it. Let's block any merger. But the reality is Alcatel-Lucent is not a French company; it's a global company. Its main markets are China and the U.S. Its ownership is foreign; most of its managers aren't French.

Uber is a global business. We don't think just in terms of the U.S.

For an international business such as ours, you can't localise without a local. That was a hard lesson for us. We had to be closer, physically present, which is when we put teams on the ground.

Globalisation for a startup is exciting; you have to learn so fast about the different cultures of the world.

I think increasingly WWE is a global company - as much as they can they want to push out into new markets like Europe.

I run businesses all around the United States, all around the globe.

In India, we have the global services HQ, R&D centres, global network operating centres, global manufacturing, and product management - India is not just a market but a country we use for extended NSN.

One of the real challenges, since we're working in so many places - Mexico, Japan, Brazil - is understanding variations, both in terms of culture and context.

Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds.

Living in Germany Africanised me.

I've benefited from the best of both societies and both cultures, East and West.

It's true that I run a multi-national group but I have no interests in India. So please tell me, what should my identity be?

Businesses are not just local or even national anymore - good ideas are immediately global. So the market opportunities are much larger than we've ever imagined or seen.

I do not like the idea that a Russian company cannot be successful without Western experience. I think that, at the end of the day, it is a question of bringing benchmarks from other countries. So far, the golden benchmark has been the West.