More jobs for Silicon Slopes: Cal software company coming to Utah

A California-based software company will put operations in Utah over the next few years, creating 355 jobs in Utah’s Silicon Slopes area.

Cornerstone OnDemand Inc., based in Santa Monica and with about 1,800 employees worldwide, made the expansion announcement last week after being approved for a $1.2 million tax credit incentive by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) board.

Founded in 1999, the publicly traded company produces cloud-based learning and human capital management software, including those focused on recruitment, onboarding, training and collaboration, performance management, compensation, succession planning, people administration and analytics. Its software and services are used by more than 3,350 clients worldwide, encompassing more than 37 million users in 192 countries and in 43 languages. In 2017, it had revenues of $482 million.

The $4.4 million Utah project will be the company’s third office in North America and its 18th worldwide. It will support the company’s human resources and analytics software products in the areas of finance, global product support, engineering, product development and administration.

Thomas Wadsworth, GOED’s business development and corporate incentives manager, said the company has not selected a site for the operations but it will be in the Silicon Slopes area, which is the southern end of Salt Lake County and the northern end of Utah County.

“Our continued growth and success has created a new opportunity to expand U.S. operations outside of our global headquarters in Santa Monica, California,” Brian Swartz, the company’s chief financial officer, said in a prepared statement. “Utah meets our goals of managing expansion in a cost-effective and thoughtfully planned manner. In addition, Utah has a robust technology presence; a highly educated and trained workforce; and offers tremendous amenities for our employees, including cost-of-living and housing affordability. We have begun initial recruiting efforts and plan to be operational in Utah by the end of the year.”

The new jobs are expected to pay an average of $86,000 annually. Total wages over seven years will be $156.4 million and new state tax revenues are expected to be about $6 million over that period.

“Cornerstone OnDemand is one of the seminal SaaS companies in the country, and we’re very fortunate to have them wanting to bring their expansion here,” Mel Lavitt, chairman of the GOED board’s incentives committee, told the board. “It’s like getting Adobe here, in my opinion. It’s a major company that is well-known and is certainly going to help the state of Utah and bring more recognition and more talent.”

“This is a fantastic company,” Wadsworth said. “As we worked with them, the thing that impressed us and what we’re really excited about is if you look at the job mix, it’s a diverse mix of high-paying jobs that we have, anywhere from finance and accounting to software engineering. There’s a potential for significant follow-on and investment as we look at the future.”