‘Well-known’ Silicon Valley tech firm set to open Calgary office: Nenshi

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi says at least one “well-known” technology company has agreed to open an office in the city following a mission to Silicon Valley last week.

Nenshi, Calgary Economic Development CEO Mary Moran and provincial Minister of Economic Development and Trade Deron Bilous travelled to California in an effort to encourage technology companies to move to Calgary.

For now, the mayor is being coy about which company is involved.

“I will say that it is a well-known name in the tech industry,” Nenshi said. “And the fact that this will be their first foray in Canada will have ripple effects far beyond their own investment.”

Nenshi told reporters on Monday that Calgarians won’t have to wait long to find out which company is coming.

“We’ll have an announcement and a ribbon cutting … very, very soon,” he said. “And there’s a couple of pretty big fish that – maybe there’s not a 50 per cent possibility they might come, it might be a 20 per cent possibility – but if they do come it would mean thousands and thousands of jobs so these are things that a really worthwhile to invest in.”

“I may have to go back one more time in June to follow up on a couple of the meetings we had in April, but it all depends on how the conversations go,” Nenshi said.

With files from News Talk 770’s Aurelio Perri