Chloe Roux, Director of Global Community: Building a Community on Support, Connection, and Empowerment
At Deel, we enable companies to hire anyone, anywhere. Now, we’re enabling global workers to connect on the same scale through the Deel Community platform led by Chloe Roux.
Chloe grew up in Lebanon and started her remote work life when she left Beirut in 2007. After studying in Italy, she worked in France, Singapore, and Ireland, where she landed in Dublin’s tech hub. There, she joined the newly-operating Airbnb team, combining tech and travel to create unique experiences for hosts and travelers alike.
Since joining Deel as the Director of Global Community, Chloe and her team have launched the Deel Community platform — a place for remote workers to meet, learn, and connect.
“We should never forget how powerful remote work is,” says Chloe. “Where you can work affects your life, where you live, and the possibilities for yourself and your family. It’s powerful to wake up every day and know we’re making a difference on a human level through the platform.”
Here’s what Chloe shared about working at Deel, building the Community platform, and her ambitious plans to connect a global network of workers online and in person.
What led you to Deel?
Chloe: We’d just moved from London, England, to Zurich, Switzerland, which is where we’ve been for four years. I had my daughter and thought I’d have to say goodbye to my career, especially because Zurich wasn’t a tech hub. This was when I realized I needed to find a remote job.
One day, I Googled ‘remote tech job + mom’ or something along those lines, just for the fun of it. I found Deel and noticed they were hiring for a Director of Community. Then I went to LinkedIn and saw I had a common friend with Alex Bouaziz (Deel Co-founder and CEO). I messaged him, poured myself a cup of coffee, and by the time I was finished pouring, Alex had answered me. That was my first experience with Deel Speed!
What makes working at Deel special?
Chloe: We have a mix of smart and kind remote workers looking to bond and solve problems together, and that combination is really special. Every time I Slack someone — even when we don’t know each other at all — there’s such kindness mixed with great problem-solving attitudes.
I thought working at Deel would be the same as any other company, but the culture has enabled a lot of wins in such a short time. Everybody’s looking at the goal and trying to get there as a team.
Why build a community platform?
Chloe: When I joined Deel, there wasn’t a community platform. We had to build everything from scratch. We wanted to build a community for our workers to meet online first and then eventually feed it into our offline activities.
I asked myself, what structure can I follow to make sure we’re giving the community what they need? So I went to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which starts with the basic human needs — physiological needs and safety — and then builds upwards with love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.
If you apply that structure to community-building, you can start with the basics of what workers need, which is support. Most of our workers will reach out to customer support or a friend who is also a remote worker for answers. So coming on to the platform, you can either search for an answer in a resource or ask a question, and somebody from the community can pick it up.
The second layer is connection. On the platform, workers can network with people on a global level through forums and regional groups that act as local home bases for each region.
Then at the top of the pyramid is empowerment. We want to empower our workers by giving them support and resources, enabling them to connect with others on a similar journey and find a sense of purpose by helping others in return.
What were some wins and challenges you experienced during the building process?
Chloe: We’re a team of problem solvers — as mentioned above — and we operate at Deel Speed which means we’re looking for the best outcomes as we build our rocketship to the moon!
Our major win was that we managed to build the platform in less than a quarter and soft-launched it to our users in a little over three months’ time. We have a solid team of engineers and project managers, and I’m very grateful for that. We operate based on reliability, accountability, and trust as cross-functional teams overall.
The challenges we faced were really minor, and the lessons learned were really about how crucial communication is.
Explore the Deel Community platform today
The Deel Community is built for remote workers around the world to connect, learn, and support each other. You can:
- Ask questions and find answers on topics ranging from local taxes to relocation
- Connect with remote workers online and through in-person meetups
- Get early access to product releases and an opportunity to give feedback
In the future, you’ll find more in-person and online events, as well as resources on legal, tax, and compliance topics around the world to serve our ever-growing community of workers.
“We’ve had meetups in Argentina and the Philippines, and our next destinations are Bali, India, Pakistan, and São Paulo,” says Chloe. “I’m hoping to one day reach a point where we’ve supported and connected with at least 80% of our workers, online or offline. Until then, we can connect with them through the Deel Community platform!”
Explore the Deel Community today. To get the full experience, join the Deel platform.
