Global Location Strategies adds to leadership team
December 17, 2019
Global Location Strategies Founding Principal Didi Caldwell has announced the addition of three senior executives to the company. Sarah White has been hired as Principal and Vice President of Site Selection. Susan Donkers has been promoted to Vice President of Strategic Development. Andrew Ratchford has been hired as a Consultant. All are newly created positions designed to skillfully manage a prodigious influx of new business while continuing to achieve ambitious goals for future expansion.
Global Location Strategies (GLS) is one of the world’s leading site selection firms specializing in the data and methodology to enable corporations to optimize their location strategy worldwide.
Caldwell expressed overwhelming confidence for the individuals chosen to fill the new positions. “Sarah, Susan and Andrew are all extremely accomplished professionals who have tremendous drive and enthusiasm for their work. We have set ambitious goals for the years ahead and establishing these new positions will ensure that we meet them.”
As Principal and Vice President of Site Selection, White works closely with Caldwell to manage the strategic growth and development of the company’s core service. She has 11 years’ experience as a site selection professional, having spent 10 years at McCallum Sweeney before assuming the role of Director of Quest Site Solutions, a spin-off of McCallum Sweeney, in July 2018.
White has extensive experience providing location advisory and incentive negotiations services
for manufacturing facilities, corporate headquarters relocations, and distribution centers across a wide variety of industries including chemicals, food and beverage, advanced manufacturing, consumer products, forest products, renewable energy, and more.
As Vice President of Strategic Development, Donkers is chiefly responsible for business growth. This includes identifying and cultivating relationships with partners, introducing new products and services to market, and expanding into new markets. She has been with GLS since 2014 and has been instrumental in acquiring new accounts at GLS and expanding the company’s service and product offerings. She will continue to lead business development and marketing to manage an annual sales plan, nurture relationships with prospective clients, and negotiate agreements.
Before joining GLS, Susan worked in several capacities within real estate and business development. She managed global sustainability and clean tech projects for HDR Architecture & Engineering, real estate development projects for a Washington, DC urban infill developer, Hoffman & Associates, and asset improvement projects for Equity Office Properties REIT. She began her career with AECOM on the team of the Pentagon Renovation Program.
As a Consultant, Ratchford is responsible for providing location advisory services for the company’s industrial manufacturing and economic development clients. Prior to joining GLS, he served as an asset manager for Graycliff Capital Partners, an $800 million real estate equity investment, asset management and development firm. Prior to that he was a principal planner for Greenville (S.C.) County’s Long-Range Planning Division. In that role he provided planning services, grants administration and coordinated development projects involving land use, infrastructure, recreation, economic development and development regulation services for one of the fastest-growing counties in the U.S.
For more information about GLS, visit www.globallocationstrategies.com.
About Global Location Strategies
Established in 1974, Global Location Strategies (GLS) is one of the world’s most experienced and reputable site selection firms specializing in capital-, labor-, and resource-intensive facilities. With services that span the globe, GLS has conducted site searches in more than 50 countries for companies with particular concentration in pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing, chemical/petrochemicals, metals/polymers/composites, paper, and automotive. Since 2012, GLS has supported both domestic capital investment and foreign direct investment projects valued at $6.6 billion and generating 6,213 jobs. The company offers a full suite of site selection services, including location benchmarking, site selection, incentive negotiation, technical site due diligence, and alignment and training. Economic development services include industrial site audits, site competitiveness studies, strategic site identification and industrial asset optimization. GLS is headquartered in Greenville, S.C. For more information, visit www.GlobalLocationStrategies.com.
