Glen Skarott runs the New Delhi, India, shared-services operation for Macquarie Group. As deputy group financial controller, he is based at corporate headquarters in Sydney, Australia.
He knew Macquarie (which is pronounced “muh-quarry”) needed a new site to support its significant and growing U.S. and Americas businesses and it needed to be in a favorable location.
It also needed resiliency, which allows companies to flow work from one time zone to another as well as to provide a backup in case of weather issues, power outages and other potential disruptions.
A search that began on Skarott’s desktop computer formally ended Thursday when Macquarie U.S. Country Head Michael McLaughlin, Mayor Lenny Curry, City Council President Greg Anderson, JAX Chamber Chair-elect Audrey Moran and JAXUSA Partnership Chair Mark Frisch announced Jacksonville was chosen for the Global Finance Services site.
“Our team conducted a very robust search,” McLaughlin said at a news conference at the JAX Chamber offices Downtown. “Jacksonville emerged as the best choice.”
McLaughlin said of 20-25 economic-development factors, Jacksonville scored the best, citing the talent pool, quality of life, climate and availability of airline flights to Macquarie’s U.S. headquarters in New York.
Jacksonville landed the 123-job center that McLaughlin said might initially reach 135 jobs.
There to the side stood that team’s leaders — Skarott and John Papatsos, head of corporate reporting for the Americas — watching and listening to the big reveal.
They were all smiles when the announcement was made, although their work continues as they complete lease negotiations for a Downtown site and then set up the operation.
Skarott said he started about a year ago looking for a site. The operation, which provides corporate support in financial and product control, tax and regulatory reporting and legal entity control, is needed to serve the Americas and some European markets.
At one point, Moran emphasized, Macquarie was considering 17 cities in five countries. The company said about 10 U.S. cities were considered.
Skarott said in narrowing down the sites, it “quite quickly” became a focus on the United States. In January and February, the team began a caravan across the U.S., although the company has declined to identify the other cities it reviewed.
He said he first came to Jacksonville in February and over two or three days met with civic and business leaders “and a number of our competitors.”
Skarott pointed out one of the biggest, Deutsche Bank, and that its choice of Jacksonville for a major office center reinforced the city as a prospective selection. It was a major reinforcement. “We feel comfortable there is a talent pool here,” Skarott said.
His second trip to Jacksonville in the April-May period was about a week long, when his team, including Papatsos, met with a lot of the same people as during the first trip.
In addition, they met with recruiters and representatives of universities to talk about the future talent pool for the highly skilled jobs the company will fill.
“It was a great experience,” he said.
Along the way, the team met with JAXUSA Partnership President Jerry Mallot and Cathy Chambers, JAXUSA senior vice president of strategy and business development. Executives also visited with former Mayor Alvin Brown and worked closely with the city Office of Economic Development.
Mallot remembers he and Chambers began to intensely work with Macquarie in January as Enterprise Florida was working with the company on sites within the state.
Mallot and Chambers brought more than 50 Northeast Florida executives from more than a dozen companies, especially financial services companies, into the circle of influence to convince Macquarie that Jacksonville was the place to be.
Macquarie shared its identity confidentially with those companies, Mallot said, because it would be hiring people with similar skills. He said the collegiality and trust shown by existing Jacksonville companies was another attractive factor in the city’s business environment.
“We were exposing them to many different parts of the city to see why it’s a great city,” he said. JAXUSA also involved Curry before he took office July 1.
In June, the Macquarie team recommended Jacksonville as a location to the company’s executive committee. Mallot remembers Skarott’s pivotal call several weeks ago: If council approves the incentives package, Jacksonville wins the deal. (The state also offered incentives, making the total package $1.76 million.)
Mallot said Macquarie also had an economic-development package approved with another city in case Jacksonville didn’t work out. He and the company have declined to identify that city or any of the others that had been under consideration.
Invoking a state law that allows confidentiality, the deal went through the council process as Project Post. It had been operating under a different code name, but needed a stronger one, Mallot said.
He declined to say what the first name was, but said the public process of council review necessitated a careful choice. Chambers and JAX Chamber Education and Workforce Development Vice President Tina Wirth saw a Post-it easel pad. And there they had it.
On Tuesday, council approved Project Post unanimously.
On Thursday, McLaughlin and a team flew to Jacksonville to make the announcement.
Skarott and Papatsos will return as the office is being set up. A lease should be signed in a few weeks for 20,000 to 25,000 square feet of office space Downtown. Hiring kicks off in September. The office should open by early next year.
“Downtown provides that nexus of talent and quality of life and access to transportation that are important to the success of the business,” McLaughlin said.
While some Macquarie executives from other locations will be relocating to Jacksonville, most of the hires will be local.
Skarott said the site search includes options for additional growth, which “depends on a successful first phase.”
Curry said the salaries, which Macquarie pledges will average $64,356 a year, will drive up competition and wages in Jacksonville and attract more talent to the area.
“The jobs that they’re bringing to Jacksonville are exactly what Jacksonville needs,” he said.
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