Partner Article

Relocation success for DigitalCity Business

A leading ‘rich-media merchandising and marketing’ platform has decided to locate its development centre in Middlesbrough - in what is a huge coup for DigitalCity Business.

Amplience has set up its rather impressive development offices at DCB’s Boho One – creating eight new jobs in the process and with plans for more rapid growth.

The specialist company boasts an impressive range of clients including Waitrose, Dunhill, Marks and Spencer, Superdry, TK Maxx, boohoo.com, and overseas brands Peek & Cloppenburg, A Wear and CTG.

The firm’s Middlesbrough based office is up and running - led by chief technical officer John Williams and chief executive James Brooke.

It is John’s background that led the company to the North East, Middlesbrough and DCB in particular. John was born and grew up in the town. After leaving school and further education he found it extremely difficult to find employment and eventually settled on a job in a factory at Newton Aycliffe.

But he knew he could do better and decided to retrain. He enrolled at Teesside University and graduated as a software engineer with 1st class honours – leaving for London 17 years ago.

John forged a very successful career in IT – living through the dot.com ‘boom and bust’ and working as CTO at LBi – one of Europe’s leading digital agency networks gaining vast experience of delivering large scale online platforms for leading retail media and financial services. During this time John also completed an MBA at Imperial College further strengthening his business skills. He joined Amplience in 2010.

So when the company needed to expand it looked to the North as an ideal place to relocate. His links with the University meant he knew there was a huge amount of digital expertise in the Tees Valley.

“To lead in our field, we must continue to recruit highly skilled talent. We chose the North East as it is a fantastic region for digital companies – there are five universities which give access to a great pool of talent with excellent technical skills.”

Mark Elliott, chief executive, of DCB said: “To have attracted a company of Amplience calibre is a real success for us and for the Tees Valley’s digital cluster.

“It really speaks volumes that the company looked all over the UK and decided that the best opportunities were here – with the support of DigitalCity Business.”

John said: “DigitalCity Business has been a great help – they have been instrumental in the recruitment process – we don’t have a lot of time so that level of support has been vital for us to launch the new office.

“We have recruited two graduates and five experienced IT developers and will have 15 people here by the end of the year. DCB understood the process wasn’t just about skills but also about understanding the culture of our company – that’s something that’s very important to us,” said John.

Amplience was established in 2008 and is a leading rich-media merchandising and marketing platform that enables online retailers and brands to offer more engaging digital experiences, through the use of interactive media and video.

That leads to a dramatic increase in sales across all digital channels from conventional browsers, social media sites and instore kiosks to mobile and tablet devices.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ian Benet .