Cork-San Francisco business links ‘will grow’ due to ties forged more than 30 years ago
Ed Lee was speaking at a business breakfast in Cork to celebrate the links between the cities, which twinned in 1984. Mr Lee said the cities shared a culture of IT and had “followed the same path economically” since the twinning agreement.
Mr Lee, who was accompanied by members of the business community in San Francisco for the meeting at the Kingsley Hotel, said that the IT industry in San Francisco had been bolstered by Cork talent.
The event was sponsored by San Francisco-headquartered web management company NGinX, which plans to double its Cork workforce in the next year to 60, and up to 100 new roles in three years.
Mr Lee said: “We know our partnership with Cork will lead to increased economic development between our two cities. We look forward to fostering the ongoing growth of our shared businesses communities while continuing to share best practices for supporting innovation and ingenuity.”
San Francisco was the “innovation capital of the world”, Mr Lee said, with the likes of Instagram, Yelp and Twitter headquartered in the city.
However, technology figures such as Limerick brothers John and Patrick Collison, who founded online payments company Stripe and became the youngest self-made billionaires last year, were evidence that Ireland was also a global leader, Mr Lee said.
Cork Chamber president Bill O’Connell said Cork’s relationship with the US west coast extended from the San Francisco Bay Area into Silicon Valley.
“There are currently over 30 companies from the wider state of California with a presence in Cork.
“Companies from San Francisco have been investing in Cork since our very first foreign direct investment from Apple in the 1980s, and have been particularly instrumental in growing the tech and life sciences clusters here in Cork,” Mr O’Connell said.
“It is positive to note that more recently, the flow of investments is also starting to reverse, with Cork companies such as Voxpro and PCH establishing a presence on the west coast in the last decade,” he said.
Mr Lee visited Johnson Controls at One Albert Quay, which has been dubbed “Ireland’s smartest building” for its integrated technology.
He also visited Voxpro, the Cork-founded call centre company that was bought by Canadian firm Telus International for an estimated €150m last month.
