Investment group creating 160 roles at new ‘centre of excellence’ in city
A US investment company that counts Dundalk FC among its business interests is creating 160 new jobs in Belfast paying an average of £50,000 a year.
PEAK6 is opening a “centre of excellence” in the city expected to contribute a total of £8.5million in salaries.
Economic development agency Invest NI offered £1.04m in funding towards the jobs.
Chicago-based PEAK6 says it uses technology to find “a better way of doing things”.
It owns the trading business Apex Clearing, the tech group PEAK6 Capital Management, e-sports company Evil Geniuses and US flood insurer National Flood Services.
PEAK6 Sports took over Dundalk FC in late 2017.
The wider business will be seeking software engineers for its Belfast centre, with a target of filling 160 roles over the next four years.
Judi Hart, chief operating officer at PEAK6, said recruits would work across all the business’s brands.
She added the company had chosen Belfast for the new centre of excellence based on a recommendation from a contact.
“I took a trip to Belfast in October 2019 for back-to-back meetings and met Queen’s University, the city council, Invest NI and saw the city itself,” Mrs Hart told the Belfast Telegraph.
“I just thought that it (Belfast) was such a great match for the company,”
Like so many other firms, the company’s employees are currently working from home.
“The truth of the matter is, we had to pivot and change. PEAK6 was once 90% working in the office and 10% remote, but we got to 100% working from home in a very short time,” she said.
The business is aiming for a balance of 70% office work and 30% remote work.
“People will want greater flexibility and we’re here to allow that, but we don’t want to compromise team dynamic or the business,” Mrs Hart said.
She described the firm’s work as using “world-class technology and operational excellence” to help businesses prosper.
“To do this, we need to grow our workforce to increase efficiencies and be able to capitalise on opportunities. Our Northern Ireland colleagues will play an important part in this,” she said.
“The Belfast team will innovate industry-specific technology solutions that will enable transformation across our companies and focus on the research, development and delivery of new products to help us achieve our ambitious growth plans.”
Economy Minister Diane Dodds said the investment was “welcome news as we work to rebuild our economy”.
“Northern Ireland is a leading location for international technology investment,” she added.
“Our strength in financial technology, cloud solutions and emerging areas such as artificial intelligence and machine learning continues to attract businesses to invest here and capitalise on our growing expertise to help them grow their businesses.”