Guidehouse, a worldwide consulting agency with places of work in Austin and Houston, is increasing into San Antonio and plans to create 1,000 jobs within the area over the subsequent 5 years.
The corporate has chosen San Antonio as its subsequent location because of its “strategic location,” stated Ali Bokhari, the worldwide managed providers chief at Guidehouse.
Bokhari stated they’re enthusiastic about San Antonio because of its Able to Work initiative and robust native partnerships. Able to Work is a city-led and funded program that seeks to put traditionally deprived residents into high-demand jobs.
“I’ve checked out related applications throughout many different places, however this one appears to be significantly very employer-friendly,” Bokhari stated.
Guidehouse linked immediately with Larger:SATX, a regional financial group devoted to rising high quality jobs within the San Antonio space, when it determined to start out its enlargement into the Alamo metropolis, Bokhari added.
“On this case, there weren’t any incentives that the corporate required of both the town or the county,” stated Romanita Matta-Barrera, chief enterprise development officer of Larger:SATX. “We’ve labored immediately with the corporate, however we knew that highlighting the Able to Work program can be essential.”
Guidehouse is especially excited to make the most of Able to Work’s six-week Pay It Ahead internships, which is able to shortly assist the agency rent aspiring expertise, Bokhari stated. The Pay It Ahead internships assist place candidates with high-paying employers. The town’s workforce growth workplace then covers the wages over six weeks.
On the finish of this system, if members are employed full time, employers reimburse the town for the internship wage. These funds are then “paid ahead” to assist the participation of further people in this system.
“I wish to thank Guidehouse and their dedication to essentially making an influence right here in San Antonio by offering alternatives for our group members, our Able to Work members, to get high quality, good paying careers right here domestically,” stated Mike Ramsey, govt director of the town’s workforce growth workplace.
Guidehouse is a portfolio firm of Bain Capital, which acquired Guidehouse in late 2023 for $5.3 billion from Veritas Capital, which owned the corporate for 5 years. Guidehouse has grown by its personal acquisitions, and in the present day employs greater than 17,000 individuals in 55 places all over the world.
Guidehouse will transfer into 9903 Westover Place in far west San Antonio; that location will function a regional operations hub for the agency to supply advisory, digital, company and managed providers all through Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico, the corporate introduced through press launch on Tuesday.
We sat down with Bokhari, Ramsey and Matta-Barrera to debate the corporate’s enlargement into San Antonio.
The next interview has been flippantly edited for readability and size.
Q: What was it particularly about San Antonio that enticed your organization to broaden right here?
Bokhari: As you’ll anticipate, we’re data-driven. We did take a look at the demographics in not simply in San Antonio, however a number of cities that we had narrowed down our search to — and a part of what we had been on the lookout for was the best expertise pool. And never simply the best expertise pool, but additionally the flexibility to scale — and San Antonio was squarely within the candy spot for that. As well as, there may be super proximity right here to a few of our present prospects, and … so these dynamics type of introduced us right here.
Matta-Barrera: These initiatives that we’re going after are all the time aggressive — there are not any assurances that we’ll land these initiatives. Over a 12 months and a half, they’re evaluating and a wide range of features to make important monetary investments as they’re considering strikes like this — and so for us inside that course of, it’s been actually important, all the work that we are actually seeing come to fruition.
Q: How will the Able to Work initiative assist Guidehouse?
Bokhari: The place we want to companion with the Metropolis of San Antonio within the Able to Work program is across the medical coding area. We do work with well being care suppliers doing income cycle administration, and medical coding is a part of that course of. It’s a specialised space with super profession development alternatives for individuals to get certification. … The primary program that we wish to leverage is the Pay it Ahead internship, and that’s the place we’re going to begin to get the primary cohort on the medical coding entrance. When that goes properly — not if — we are going to proceed to have a rolling method to it.
Q: Why is Guidehouse’s transfer right here good for San Antonio?
Bokhari: It could be superb for San Antonio, however it’s additionally superb for Guidehouse; the expertise pool is prevalent in San Antonio. Even when we’re not in a position to rent individuals out of the group into these jobs, the uncooked expertise is on the market to have the ability to prepare these individuals into the roles, which is what we’re actually hyper-focused on — is curating our workforce for the long run. We’re right here for the long run and we acknowledge that to achieve success in the long run, we’ve obtained to lean into the group as properly.
Ramsey: To broaden on that — that is going to assist us immensely. We’d like good jobs for our members [in Ready to Work] and Guidehouse, and the 1,000 jobs that they’re bringing into our group, are a fantastic alternative for individuals to get a kind of. And in order they proceed to ramp up, and we proceed to align our coaching applications, we’re leaning into the partnership with Guidehouse.
