EWI plans to expand worldwide, add up to a dozen jobs

Even though EWI Worldwide's name implies it's an international player, the firm isn't as big as it wants to be. Yeah, it's has offices across the U.S., including a newly opened one in Atlanta, and employs 180 of its 300 people in Livonia, but the company's leaders see a lot of potential growth overseas.

That's not to say the U.S. hasn’t been very good for the company founded in the 1970s. Its sales have grown from $100 million six years ago to $180 million this year. It sees enough sales growth in the near future that it expects to hire a dozen people or so sooner rather than later.

"We feel like in the next five years we're going to be a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar company," says Matt Hubbard, vice president of marketing for EWI. "We think we have the infrastructure to get us there."

That infrastructure includes everything from its traditional design and fabrication of displays for events like auto shows to other marketing and communications efforts that help advertisers reach customers. Even though the company started in the automotive industry it's looking to branch out to other fields, like healthcare and telecommunications.

But when it does reach into those industries near and far, the company still plans to come back home to find talent in some of Metro Detroit's best education centers, like the College of Creative Studies.

"The talent pool is very deep here," Hubbard says. "It's going to be the driver for our future growth."

Source: Matt Hubbard, vice president of marketing for EWI Worldwide
Writer: Jon Zemke

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