Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Why Jacksonville? 3 executives explain why they're here — and what the city needs to do better




Downtown Jacksonville's skyline Enlarge
Downtown Jacksonville's skyline






By
 –  Reporter, Jacksonville Business Journal


From Amazon to Deutsche Bank, Jacksonville has increasingly become an attractive option for corporations to open up shop and bring employees and investment dollars to the First Coast.
The networking group Commercial Real Estate Women Jacksonville learned why that may be the case as the city's director of Business Development at the Office of Economic Development, Ed Randolph, moderated a panel that included Tyra Tutor, senior vice president of corporate development & Social Responsibility at the Adecco Group, Mindy Holden, senior vice president of procurement and real estate at the Adecco Group, Mike Middleton, managing partner for Ernst & Young's Jacksonville offices and Kevin Dooley, head of human resources for Deutsche Bank.

The highlights from the nearly hour-long discussion included talks about ease to find qualified employees as well as lower real estate costs.
What brought you to Jacksonville?
Dooley: In 2008, we bought something [in Jacksonville] and because of the financial crisis we had to repurpose the facility. That worked out perfectly because we started to insource functions that had been located in India. We started what we called a near-shore service center. The whole point of the strategy was to be in the same time zone, so that our traders could call and get an immediate answer. With the success of the service center, in 2010, we extended our sales and trading model, starting our trading desk in Jacksonville. Then in 2012, we started our asset management desk. It has continued to build since then. I will say even though we don't do a site evaluation, we do a reevaluation every couple of years, looking at capabilities and talent and then we also look at costs and infrastructure.
Middleton: We started out by looking where most of our people travel in other places of the U.S. What was the most common destination? And that got us focused in on Florida. We always thought it was a great growth market for us. So once we got interested in Florida, Jacksonville came to the top of the list pretty quickly based on the cost of doing business here and the availability of talent.
Tutor: For the Adecco Group, when we bought MPS Group, it really made the decision between Long Island and Jacksonville. And when they bought us, we had 180 employees in Jacksonville and probably about 600 in New York. There is a salary difference no doubt, but they were impressed with the teamwork and loyalty.
What hurdles did you face?
Tutor: So, in 2012, the market wasn't quite as tight as it is now, so that was good timing for us. We hired 200 people in nine months. The incentives helped. It is expensive to move, there's no doubt about that.
Middleton: Our biggest hurdle was trying to find the right office space. Some of the older buildings just don't accommodate what we were looking for. Also, the people we were hiring, parking was an issue for them.
Dooley: If you are an existing company and you're setting up shop in another city, how do you entice your employees to move? Especially from New York. I was living on Long Island and my colleagues thought I was crazy. They told me that I would be landlocked when I got to Jacksonville since there were no other big banks down here. I told them that I looked at that as a positive. Some of the jobs we have here are fairly sophisticated, which requires us to look around the country and import talent. It is a barrier and can be tricky to find the right people to relocate here.
What would make the city better?
Dooley: I believe if we had direct flights from London and Frankfurt, we would have a much larger presence and a much more senior presence. I think the ecosystem would just be better.
Middleton: I will have to say the same thing. The airport is a challenge. When company's look for corporate headquarter relocation, typically airports and international flights are high on that list. I know we struggle and may get thrown out on some of those opportunities.
Tutor: I think you may be right, and I had thought that maybe education might be an issue, but I'll tell you we just moved a two people from Italy and one person from Australia all with young kids. One's in St. Johns County, one's at Bolles and one's at Episcopal. So as much as we hear about that about Duval County, which I think is getting better, we do have alternatives and we are not hearing that education is an issue. We would have a lot more meetings in Jacksonville if we had direct domestic flights and we would definitily have more of our European collegues coming over if they could get here.

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