A letter to America

‘Last August we in Londonderry Chamber, supported by our partners in London’s Tech City and others, ran our inaugural technology, media and music festival called Culturetech – sort of like Ireland’s South by South West.

Afterwards Gregg Fraley, a world renowned American innovation guru, wrote in his blog: “There is a new breeze blowing in the once troubled land of Derry Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It’s a wind bringing a refreshing sense of possibility, energy, good ideas, youth, art, music and entrepreneurial spirit. It might otherwise be called Hope. Walk the Peace Bridge into the Walled City and you’ll find a vibrant core of creative talent.”

As business leaders we know that a place’s attributes on paper rarely clinch an investment decision – what really makes the difference between two apparently similar places is people.

Now, Derry’s paper attributes are excellent – excellent education, very competitive cost base, world class communications infrastructure, the English language.

But the thing that really sells Derry is the confidence, passion and commitment of its people. The Unique Selling Proposition of Derry is the very 21st century marriage of a centuries’ old heritage of pure creativity in literature, music and art, with ultra modern globalising digital technology, all energised by a level of post-conflict confidence reminiscent of the post-war reconstruction of Europe.

What American investors like Seagate, whose 20 year involvement in this city is regularly and rightly commended by Chamber for their outstanding contribution to their workforce and to the whole community – what American investors have found here is more than just a place that is infrastructurally equipped for world-class cost effective business investment; it is a place where people believe in more than the traditional two-dimensional employer-employee relationship – it is a place whose people want to tell their modern, confident and positive story of the new Northern Ireland to the world audience, and who are creatively and technologically equipped to do so.

It is a place that has become a magnet for talented mobile human capital to choose to live, work, study and start a business.

And it is not just us in Chamber who understand that business requires more than infrastructure, stability and a favourable cost base – in 2010 when DuPont were celebrating their 50th anniversary of their Derry plant they told the story of how after the Second World War they decided they needed a plant in Europe.

So they asked the British Government to suggest a range of possible alternative sites, all of which had to fulfil certain paper criteria.

Back in Wilmington Delaware the DuPont board was trying to discriminate between the sites, all with their identical paper attributes, when one of the Board Members said: “Derry – I was stationed there in the War. Magnificent people. We need to go there.”

And that is how they made their decision, and they still are here, 53 years later, and we are very grateful to have them.

So I say to you, not only are Derry Londonderry’s paper attributes excellent, but our human attributes are outstanding. This is the place that produced no fewer than eight of the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence, and the culture that produced that courageous and pioneering spirit also produced political leaders with the moral courage to reach Northern Ireland’s famous historic political compromise that the name Derry Londonderry has come to symbolise.

So I return to our new friend Gregg Fraley: “They say in investing that you want to get in early. In my view now is the time to invest in Derry”.’

I personally would add that, as Americans, you might feel that it will be like coming home. Thank you very much.