2025 Oyster Customer Awards

Building a global team isn't easy. You're navigating different labor laws, time zones, benefit expectations, and compliance requirements across dozens of countries—all while trying to create a consistent employee experience and keep your team connected.

Behind every successful global company are HR leaders making it happen. Leaders who balance ambitious growth plans with doing right by every person on their team. Who figure out German works councils, Brazilian labor courts, and French notice periods while ensuring no one feels like a second-class employee just because they're in a different country.

That's why we created the Oyster Customer Awards. To recognize the companies and individual leaders who are doing global employment exceptionally well—expanding thoughtfully, building distributed teams with care, and partnering with us to make it happen.

After reviewing nominations and leadership feedback, we're honored to share the 2025 winners - and some words about why they won from their account teams.

Company Awards

Recognizes a company making incredible strides to transform global hiring with Oyster HR.

🤝 MerQube – Emerging Partnership Award: Recognised for exceptional early growth and momentum in 2025, reflecting strong alignment and meaningful collaboration from the outset.

🌍 Synthesia – Distributed Team Excellence Award: Recognised for building and scaling a distributed workforce across numerous countries while maintaining strong compliance standards and robust global operations.

Individual Awards

Recognizes an HR professional making incredible strides to transform global hiring with Oyster HR.

✨ Warren Riley, Makersite: Oyster Advocate Award

Recognised for championing collaboration, strengthening trust, and building advocacy across teams.

💡 Mary Morgan, GumGum: Change Maker Award

Recognised for driving meaningful progress through bold expansion and accelerated global adoption.

💛 Lidia Pereira, Laminar Projects: Culture Builder Award

Recognised for cultivating an inclusive culture and leading with clarity, authenticity, and care.

What These Winners Represent

These winners represent something bigger than individual achievements. They represent what's possible when you combine ambition with the right approach to global employment.

They're proof that you can scale internationally without compromising on employee experience. That you can move fast while still doing things the right way. That distributed teams can be just as strong—sometimes stronger—than co-located ones.

And they're proof that how you build your team matters as much as who you hire.

To all our 2025 winners: thank you for trusting us with your global teams. Thank you for setting the standard. And thank you for showing what exceptional global employment looks like.

Here's to building great teams, everywhere.