Manhattan COO Says Dublin Is More Vibrant and Cosmopolitan City for Web Workforce Than Cork, Limerick and Galway
Squarespace, an all-in-one website publishing platform developer, has announced it is to establish its EMEA Headquarters in Dublin with the creation of 20 new jobs in 2013, and a further 80 throughout 2014 and 2015.
Based in Manhattan, New York City, Squarespace is a website publishing platform that allows people to create professional blogs, web pages, stores, and galleries without touching a line of code. The completely inclusive, all-in-one service provides hosting, content management, domain names, social integrations, e-commerce, and 24-hour customer support.
The Squarespace operation will open in central Dublin this summer, and will serve its customers around the globe. According to the company, Dublin was chosen as their first location outside of New York City over many others in Europe, including London, Berlin, and Barcelona which they say each had their advantages.
Talking to IrishDev.com, Jesse Hertzberg, SquareSpace COO, who is currently in Ireland holding interviews for the company's Director of EMEA Operations, said: "We hire for personality, and have consistently found the Irish workforce to be friendly, gregarious, and helpful. We have simply found an obundance of great 'fit' in this country. We came to experience this by spending a lot of time here, finding the entire community here, from local startups to Facebook and Google, to be generous with their time, advice and insights. This, combined with the ease of travel and the similarities in culture made Dublin an obvious choice."
Asked why the company chose Dublin over cities like Cork / Galway / Limerick, Hertzberg said: "We are a Manhattan-based company with urban sensibilities. We want to be in a large, vibrant, cosmopolitan city. Dublin was the obvious choice from that perspective."
Anthony Casalena, Founder and CEO of Squarespace, agreed: "Dublin offers us a friendly, young, and talented workforce in a vibrant center city location. It's the perfect choice for Squarespace."
Remarking that Squarespace is a highly innovative company and a leader in its field, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD, said: "ICT is a key sector targeted as part of the Government's Action Plan for Jobs, and in the two years we have been in office over 11,000 additional people work in this sector. Today's announcement that Squarepace is establishing its European headquarters in Dublin is great news for the city and the sector."
Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the Government is working to attract further investment through Action Plan for Jobs: "I wish Squarespace every success in their new headquarters and offer them the continued support of the Irish Government as their company develops here."
Hertzberg concluded: "The FDI is nice but was not the driver of our decision. We came for the people!"