05-25-2022, 12:45 AM
(05-24-2022, 10:25 PM)tomh009 Wrote:(05-23-2022, 05:37 PM)taylortbb Wrote: I work for Cisco, and most people would consider our Toronto office the Canadian HQ. But the only top management there is the "Canada Lead" , which is a sales division position. For those of us not part of sales there effectively isn't any top management in Toronto, or anywhere else in Canada. It's not uncommon at my work for someone in Canada to report to someone in France, who reports to someone in the UK, who reports to someone in the US, who... you get the idea. It's one globally integrated operation, with the only meaningful cluster of top management being the global HQ in San Jose, California.
Sure, and my manager is in the US as well.
But there is still a Cisco Canada, and a Google Canada etc. They do need to handle some things locally, such as finance, HR -- and sales. (You are likely paid by Cisco Canada rather than the US corporate entity, for example.) So, there still is a Cisco Canada CEO, and a management team. It currently appears to be Shannon Leininger.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonleininger/
Maybe she's not meaningful to you, but she is still responsible for the Canadian operation, and will likely work at the Canadian HQ.
Yes, I mean, all companies with a division operating in any country need a legal corporate entity with a local address for the purposes of taxes, and complying with various laws, to say nothing of logistics of "this is the address to send us stuff".
But from a perspective *in* that company, that "HQ" can literally be a fake office in Deleware (in the US obviously, there are equivalents in other countries), where all the actual important stuff takes place somewhere else and is managed through the other country.
HQ is just a public facing thing.
FWIW...TD used to have an HQ in Amsterdam Zuid, I am kind of ticked off they moved it to Hungary and then decided they wouldn't employ me here because they had no legal entity in the Netherlands.
(Yes, one could be employed as an independent contractor in a country without an HQ. It doesn't work for situations where you have a lot of employees, but it would definitely have worked for a one off like me. I am a little ticked off they wouldn't do this.)