Member Article

"Choosing Liverpool was a no-brainer," says RedTouchMedia chief

Wayne Scholes is the chief executive of software and content business Red Touch Media, who will be bringing its newest offices to Liverpool this summer along with 30 new technology jobs.

The company has bases in Salt Lake City, Utah, Johannesburg and has just opened a London office. Wayne spoke to Bdaily about choosing Liverpool as the company’s latest location, and why North West talent is so attractive:

“We’ve moved to Liverpool because, although every region puts forward really compelling arguments, when I looked at the work force in Liverpool there were a few things that attracted me.

“Firstly I thought we could make a difference there, whereas when you go to London you just feel like one of the crowd.

“In Liverpool you really feel that you can make an impact. I know that sounds like a cliche, but as a company we try and focus on the communities we work in. A certain amount of our employees’ time is set aside to work in the local area and with the community.

“The second thing was that there’s an astonishing talent pool in the North West area. I was stunned, I honestly didn’t realise the concentration of students and graduates coming from the universities in the North West.

“It was a bit of a revelation for me and I felt like a bit of an idiot because I lived in Manchester for about 12 years and I didn’t realise we had so many graduates. I knew obviously there were a lot of good universities but I didn’t know the graduates were such good quality.”

Red Touch Media is a digital media content management platform, which provides software for consumers and businesses to manage any kind of digital content, be it music, video, text and even GPS updates.

They work across big name studios such as Sony Pictures as well as school district customers.

The business is growing its workforce across all its locations in America, South Africa and the UK.

Wayne’s enthusiasm for setting up an office in the North West was clear, and he explained about how he thinks the workforce in this region compares to that in the U.S:

“The people we’ve hired over in the UK tend to be quite different to those in the U.S. We try to pick developers in the U.S. who’ll take a bit of initiative and our more adventurous.

“UK developers tend to be a little bit more cocky. They’ll say “I know this is what you told me to do, but I did this as well because I thought it was really cool.” And I really like that, UK developers are a bit more gutsy like that.

“American developers are a bit more like, “Well you didn’t ask me to do that, so I didn’t do that.” So we’ve looked hard in the U.S. for people with that adventurous mindset.

“So Liverpool was a no-brainer for us and I think it’s one of the best decisions we’ve made in the past few years.”

Wayne also praised the help Red Touch Media has from Merseyside development agency, Liverpool Vision.

“When it came down to choosing the right office, the thing that really shifted it for me was that I don’t think I’ve found a hungrier, more helpful bunch of people than the development agency here in Liverpool, Liverpool Vision.

“They did so much for us when we were looking at offices, and it just makes it so much easier. You wouldn’t get that personal touch in London.

“As much as I haven’t focused on it before, my view of the North West and particularly Liverpool has shifted dramatically in the past 8 months.

“I’ve got friends in the North West and my favourite balti place is in Manchester, so I’ve always come back here when I’ve been the UK. But I’ve only just been converted to see it as a major place to do business.

“There’s absolutely no question in my mind that we’ve picked the right location.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .