"Clarity of invoicing for the finance team was a big one"

Cytora’s Challenge: Scaling Global Talent, Avoiding Global Headaches

Cytora’s growth demanded a global hunt for top-tier engineering, AI, and delivery talent. With this ambition came a daunting web of compliance, payroll, and legal risks. Previous Employer of Record (EOR) providers left the finance team “reconciling the unreconcilable”-opaque invoices with no breakdowns, creating operational headaches and financial uncertainty.

The challenges weren’t just financial. “It’s not worth the hassle of setting up entities… the number of suppliers, the amount of expert knowledge you need, the risk exposure,” for the sake of one or two employees, Marsac explains. The biggest risk “Becoming a permanent establishment in different places depending on what these employees are doing- brings a degree of complexity where you  have to say, ‘We’re not ready to open a new hub everywhere.’

The Solution: Omnipresent EOR serving a Remote-First World

Cytora chose Omnipresent after a competitive review, drawn by its transparent invoicing and deep expertise in global employment. With Omnipresent, Cytora could hire in new markets without the burden of setting up local entities-a crucial advantage in a business where the people they want to hire are distributed.

Omnipresent’s model allowed Cytora to:

• Quickly onboard talent in new territories 
• Attract and retain top talent by offering London-level salaries across Europe, a major draw for senior engineers and specialists reluctant to accept pay cuts after relocating.

The Results: Simplicity, Flexibility, and a Culture That Wins

The operational simplicity paid off in more ways than one. “Simplicity is your best friend,” Marsac says. “If you just say, ‘We use Omnipresent it ticks the compliance boxes,’ happy days.” Investors want this reassurance during due diligence that we’re covered in all the territories we operate in.

The remote-first policy, supported by Omnipresent, empowered employees to make life choices-moving countries, settling closer to family-without impacting their roles. 

“We were hybrid before COVID, and since the start of the pandemic we will be remote first forever. That clarity has enabled people to move to their home countries… or to the countryside to do whatever is right for them and their families.”

Lessons for the Modern Scale-Up

For fast-growing companies eyeing global talent, Cytora’s story is a blueprint:

• Prioritise transparency and compliance: Choose partners who demystify global hiring.
• Build a culture that supports remote work: Make it a core value, not a temporary fix.
• Stay agile: Use EOR models for flexibility, but understand the local realities behind compliance.

As Marsac puts it, “Omnipresent helps us overcome the headaches of employing top talent around the world; they are the experts on knowing what needs to be done,  enabling us to make good business decisions.”