Promise to create 250 roles as firms grow Scottish arms

More than 250 jobs have been promised after two companies announced plans to boost their workforces north of the Border, backed by Scottish Enterprise funding.

Economy secretary Keith Brown welcomed the job boost plans by Televerde and Chevron Aircraft Maintenance. Picture: John Devlin

US sales and marketing specialist Televerde, based in Arizona, is today unveiling its first European headquarters, in Glasgow, paving the way for 170 jobs.

This will include 130 multilingual agents covering a range of European languages at the contact centre, and the international global demand-generation company said this comes after launching ten campaigns with European clients with more in the pipeline.

Economy secretary Keith Brown was due to meet workers that the company has recruited since arriving in Scotland earlier this year, having announced in October last year plans for its first European office.

The decision to opt for Scotland was supported by Scottish Development International (SDI), with Scottish Enterprise providing a regional selective assistance grant of £670,000 enabling it to “tap into Scotland’s dynamic business environment based on a well-established reputation for excellence and innovation”.

Televerde chief executive James Hooker said: “We believe we are expanding our presence in Europe at an important time when we can not only help companies expand across Europe, but also help European companies enter the Americas.

“The team we have initially built in Glasgow is extremely impressive and we and look forward to continuing to our expansion and building out our team.”

The £8.5 million investment will prompt the creation of up to 82 jobs in Scotland, including 67 highly specialised and skilled positions, and was backed by a £2m regional selective assistance grant from Scottish Enterprise.

The company, which expects to boost turnover from £9.6m in 2016 to £19m by 2021, said the project will be operational early next year, with facilities set to include a state-of-the art aircraft and engine recycling facility for aircraft decommissioning.

Chevron’s managing director, Neil Morris, said the facility “will enable the Chevron Group to handle a large range of aircraft and we hope that we can offer additional benefits to Glasgow Prestwick’s existing customer base”.

The airport’s chief executive Ron Smith said the project marks the first major new business that the travel hub’s newly formed leadership team has won “and we see this as a building block on the way to delivering a profitable and sustainable airport for the long term”. SDI managing director Paul Lewis said it is “a fantastic boost to the aviation engineering industry in Scotland.”

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