A chance meeting in Australia led to a global technology company opening a UK office in Stratford.
Emily Halderthay was appointed CEO UK and Ireland of Schoolzine after meeting founder and chief executive Phil Reardon while living in Australia.
Schoolzine is a digital communications platform for schools which provides e-newsletters, websites, apps, online booking forms and a parent/teacher booking system to communicate with parents at more than 1,000 schools in 19 countries across the world.
The five-strong UK team is based at Venture House, Stratford-on-Avon District Council’s business centre which opened on the Avenue Farm Industrial Estate in Birmingham Road in 2016.
Halderthay had initially set up Schoolzine from home in Stratford before visiting Venture House.
“I lived over in Australia with my family for three-and-a-half years and I had a chance meeting with Phil who was looking to expand into the UK and we were planning to come back to the UK,” she said.
Schoolzine offers tailored packages for schools to communicate with parents and the cornerstone of the business is e-newsletters to enable schools to build relationships with parents and keep them up-to-date with all the information they need.
“It is a competitive market in the UK where we work with over 50 schools and we have adapted our packages so schools can take up different elements whether that is the e-newsletter or app, and we offer excellent packages for local schools in Warwickshire,” Halderthay said.
After initially setting up the UK operation of Schoolzine from home, Halderthay switched to Venture House just over a year ago.
“We wanted to employ more people so we needed offices and I was delighted with Venture House and the facilities and flexibility it provides,” she said.
“It is a great place for supporting new businesses and although we are a UK division of a bigger company, we still have the same challenges of securing clients.
“We have expanded into a bigger office and we can use the meeting rooms for client meetings plus there is car-parking so this is a fantastic base for us.”
Nancy Singleton, centre manager at Venture House, added: “We want to provide the platform for businesses such as Schoolzine to thrive and grow when they make their first move into commercial premises.”