South Beach, the Burger King HQ, cruise lines… At first sight, it might seem slightly unusual for a software company to set up an office in Miami. Tech hubs like the Silicon Valley or Boston come to mind long before the Florida metropolis. The city is well known for relying on sectors like tourism, professional services and real estate. Why did Magnolia choose Miami as its Americas headquarters, then? There are a number of reasons for expanding our activities in Miami specifically. This blog post wants to shed some light on two compelling reasons: its central location and the pool of skilled workers.

Downtown Miami – the city’s central business district, where the Magnolia Americas office is located, too.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

The most important reason to build a larger Magnolia Americas office in Miami is the central location of the city within the whole of the Americas. It has a major international airport, and serves as a gateway to South, North and Central America – it will only take three hours to fly to Venezuela for example.

Because of this proximity to Central and South America, several large corporations have regional or Latin American offices in Miami: Microsoft, Yahoo and Oracle, to name but a few. This illustrates the multi-nationality of Miami and opposes the cliché of Miami as just a tourist-driven economy.
Miami’s ideal geographical location ties in perfectly with Magnolia’s need to be close to multiple locations in the Americas. Our partners and clients are based across the US as well as in Brazil and Mexico. Our growing Miami office will make it even easier to enlarge our network and be in touch with existing partners.

Bill is convinced that Miami is the perfect place for Magnolia Americas to expand its activities:

“Miami is the most international city in the US. Culture, language and commerce come together here and offer Magnolia a wonderful opportunity to hire bright and agile folks.”

PLENTY OF IT TALENT

Despite the fact that Miami is better-known for other industries, there definitely is a resource pool of technology and IT talent in the city. Software corporation Citrix is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, and BGT Partners in Hallandale Beach has received numerous “best place to work” awards in the past few years.

Further, two South Florida companies were recently ranked in the top 100 places to work in IT in 2012 by Computerworld: NextEra Energy Inc., based in Juno Beach, was ranked Nr 58. Miami Children’s Hospital came 63^rd, scoring top 10 rankings in diversity and benefits. Financial services company USAA, based in Texas, won the ranking.

We’ll make sure to be included in some of these lists next year. Jokes aside, we actually are looking for people to join us in our Miami office. Read our job openings and apply today!