Virginia Economic Review

When Dutch secondary packaging solutions provider BluePrint Automation decided to open a U.S. location in 1987, the company chose a site in Chesterfield County near Richmond, due in part to the regional talent market and multiple nearby ports that could facilitate importing.

When Ryan Buzzy was a child, his passion was to take radios apart to see how they worked. At 25, he’s not a kid anymore, but his passion for seeing how things work never changed.

Foreign companies looking to invest in Virginia go through the same considerations as their domestic counterparts — site evaluation and selection, workforce availability, and logistical issues, to name a few.

Why So Many Executives Choose Virginia for Their Corporate Headquarters The last few decades have solidified Virginia’s position as America’s hometown for corporate headquarters. In total, 580 companies have relocated to or expanded headquarters offices in Virginia in the last decade.

In the competitive realm of corporate headquarters location decisions, the COVID-19 pandemic upended the way companies operate and could have major ramifications on office space moving forward.

Matt Calkins is founder and CEO of Appian, an enterprise cloud software company headquartered in McLean in Fairfax County. Calkins is a California native who founded Appian in 1999 and grew it into a publicly traded company.