OREANDA-NEWS. June 16, 2014. Cabot Corporation (NYSE: CBT), a U.S. corporation based in Boston, Massachusetts, announced today it is opening a European, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Business Services Center in Riga, Latvia. The new center will be Cabot’s first facility in Latvia and is anticipated to be fully operational by the end of the year.
 
Cabot plans to hire approximately 120 people, and the team will be responsible for managing Cabot’s EMEA administrative business needs, such as accounting, credit and collections, accounts payable, purchasing, customer services, transportation, data management, information technology, and human resources.

The company has appointed Heather L. Ellis as the Managing Director for Cabot Latvia. Ellis has been with Cabot for 27 years, in a wide range of business and financial leadership roles in Canada, Japan and the United States.

“We are very pleased to be coming to Riga,” Ellis said. “We chose Riga as the site for our new business services center because of Latvia’s highly educated and skilled labor force, its excellent information technology infrastructure, and the Latvian government’s significant institutional support of foreign business investment needs. We believe we will be able to provide our customers with industry-leading service from Riga.”

“We welcome Cabot to Riga,” said Latvia Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma. “We are pleased that Cabot recognizes Latvia as a great place to do business. From our perspective, we strongly supported Cabot’s move to Riga because the company is an industry leader, with a long history of excellence.This new center will help Cabot grow in the region, and it will help us grow our economy by creating new jobs. We are looking forward to building a long-term relationship with Cabot.”

Cabot’s move to Latvia was supported by the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA). “Global business services are one of the key strategic sectors in investment attraction in Latvia and I am very pleased that such a project has come to Riga,” said LIAA Director Andris Ozols. “This is evidence of the success of the POLARIS process, a unique Latvian foreign investment attraction methodology. Business services centres that operate in Latvia have contributed to a positive image of the sector in our country, and I believe that Cabot will only strengthen it. I am convinced, based on LIAA’s cooperation with Cabot, that the company will be able to attract skilled talent based on Cabot’s commitment to their values, corporate culture and the enthusiasm with which they are developing the centre in Riga. LIAA will continue to support Cabot as necessary to ensure the successful implementation of the project.”

Founded in 1882, Cabot is a leading global specialty chemicals and performance materials company, with \\$3.5 billion in annual sales. The company is an industry leader in all of its major product lines, including rubber and specialty carbons, activated carbon, inkjet colorants, cesium formate drilling fluids, fumed silica and aerogel. Cabot’s global footprint spans 21 countries, with 43 manufacturing facilities, eight research and development facilities, and 23 sales offices. Cabot employs about 4,600 people worldwide.

“People like working for Cabot, and our customers like doing business with us,” said Nick Cross, President for Cabot’s EMEA region. “We have been leaders in our industry for more than 130 years. We have a passion for innovation, and we have a culture where our people enjoy working together to solve our customers’ challenges today, and to get them ready to grow tomorrow. Our people take great pride in how our products are used to create advances in the transportation, infrastructure, environmental and consumer industries. In building our new team at Riga, we are looking for talented and motivated people who share this same spirit.”

Cabot will begin hiring for the new positions between now and this fall. For more details about Cabot, please visit the company’s website at www.cabot-corp.com/careers.