Another tech consulting and recruiting agency is expanding into Nashville, aiming to hire at least 15 of its own workers locally by the end of the year.
That business is MSH, founded 12 years ago by CEO Oz Rashid. He's growing his Florida-based company with similar urgency that his clients are showing.
"I love working with companies that, it's either hire or die, right? Those tech startups need to hire to scale," Rashid said in an interview. "They need to move quickly, with expertise."
Rashid said a range of factors drew MSH to Nashville, which grew its tech-worker headcount faster than all but two places in the U.S. in the last five years, according to an analysis from CBRE Group Inc. (NYSE: CBRE). More are coming, including Oracle Corp.'s (NYSE: ORCL) 8,500-job campus planned on the East Bank of the Cumberland River. Overall, Nashville ranked as the 41st best tech market in North America, according to CBRE.
"We looked at talent migration patterns and our ability to come in and really gain market share," Rashid said. "There's something to be said about the feel of the city and what the feel of our brand is, who we are and who we want to be. It's diverse, up-and-coming, innovative. It's a mix of being serious professionally but also enjoyable to be around … there's a cohesion and camaraderie in the professional populace that you don't see everywhere else necessarily."
In a sense, MSH also was following its own employees. Chief Finance Officer Landon Cortenbach moved his family from South Florida to Nolensville in 2020. Kate McHugh relocated from Dallas to Nashville, serving as MSH's vice president of sales and technology solutions.
MSH's Nashville clients range from Asurion, the region's largest private company by revenue, to one-year-old startup ArchWell Health.
MSH has offices in New York, Toronto and India, as well as one in Dallas announced days before the Nashville expansion. Two others will open soon, Rashid said.
For now, MSH is operating from the WeWork space on Music Row.
