At a jointly hosted session in San Francisco, leaders from H&CO, Acclime and Airwallex explored how
growing companies can expand internationally without creating unnecessary complexity.
San Francisco brought founders, investors and technology leaders together for SF Tech Week 2026, a week of events and conversations across the city’s startup ecosystem. For H&CO, it was an opportunity to connect with businesses that are increasingly thinking about international growth from the outset.
On October 6, H&CO and its partner Acclime co-hosted “Scaling Internationally Without Creating a Mess,” an official SF Tech Week event focused on the practical challenges of building and operating a business across borders.
The conversation featured Mike Morroni, President of Global Expansion at H&CO; David Brown, Head of
Strategic Partnerships, North America at Acclime; and Fernando Pereira Filho, Senior Partnerships Manager at Airwallex. Together, they discussed what companies should consider when operating globally and shared practical ways to support growth without creating unnecessary complexity.
Making room for growth without adding complexity
Entering a new market can mean hiring overseas, establishing entities, working with distributors and
coordinating teams across jurisdictions. Each step brings opportunity, but also decisions involving tax,
compliance, organizational structure and day-to-day operations.
A key takeaway from Mike’s reflections on the session was the importance of choosing where to spend time and resources as a business scales. When it comes to international operations, those decisions should bothsupport growth today and create an infrastructure that can support what comes next.
That was the premise behind the H&CO and Acclime conversation: international expansion does not have to be slowed by unnecessary complexity, but it does need the right structure.
International is becoming part of the starting point
Another observation from Mike’s week in San Francisco was how early companies are thinking globally. Where technology businesses once tended to establish themselves in the United States before exploring overseas markets, many founders now consider international customers, teams and opportunities from day one. At the same time, entrepreneurs from around the world continue to bring new businesses and ideas into the U.S. market.
As Mike put it in his reflections on the week, “International is now normal.”
That shift changes the questions founders and leadership teams need to ask. Instead of treating cross-border operations as a later-stage project, they may need to consider market entry, hiring, governance and compliance much earlier in the business lifecycle.
Partnerships that connect local execution with global ambition
For H&CO and Acclime, hosting the session together was an opportunity to bring their shared focus on
international business to the SF Tech Week community. The discussion emphasized the value of combining local knowledge with coordinated cross-border operations as companies enter and grow in new markets.
The event also created an opportunity to meet founders, operators and partners across San Francisco’s active technology community. In his wider reflections on SF Tech Week, Mike noted the energy surrounding artificial intelligence and the growing number of companies seeking to reshape established industries. Those observations reinforced how quickly the business landscape is changing, and why an adaptable international operating foundation matters.
H&CO thanks its partner Acclime for co-hosting the session, as well as David Brown, Fernando Pereira Filho and everyone who took part in the conversation. We also appreciate the existing and new partners who made the week in San Francisco so valuable.
As more companies build with international markets in mind from the beginning, the goal remains
straightforward: help ambitious businesses grow across borders with the structure to support what comes next.