Betting on English for Economic Development
Lelio Sotomonte remembers being called crazy when he and his partners set out to sell English-language services to U.S. customers from their call center in Barranquilla in 2009. Back then, few young people in the city spoke English well. The quality of English education in local public schools was weak.
Today, many call Sotomonte a pioneer. Thanks to closer collaboration between business, government, academia, and civic groups, Barranquilla now boasts the strongest English skills program in Colombia, helping its call center industry soar to some 8,000 jobs, many reliant on English.
The company that Sotomonte leads, Atlantic Quantum Innovation, now employs roughly 3,500 people, about four times the number a decade ago, and it’s building a new center set to employ some 1,000 more. Already, about half of Atlantic’s employees are bilingual, mainly in Spanish and English, serving U.S. customers in such diverse fields as healthcare and telecom. Bi-lingual employees earn more and get hired for jobs faster than applicants who speak just one language, says Atlantic’s international business development manager Andrea Bruges, who speaks Spanish, German, French and English.
“The industry is following what we’re doing here, and Bogota, Cali, Medellin, and other cities are considering it to foster the economy and jobs,” says Bruges, 32, who moved from Colombia’s capital of Bogota for university studies in Barranquilla and stayed because of call center opportunities.
Prompting the expanded use of English is support from city government. With advocacy for English from the AmCham Barranquilla and a call-center association, Sotomonte says the mayor’s office mobilized unprecedented resources from Colombia’s SENA training institute. The mayor’s team also spurred donations from companies and business groups, and customized the curriculum in public schools, offering English-language classes for middle school students. SENA now offers classes in Barranquilla to bring students to the upper-intermediate B2 level required by call centers, providing a steady stream of job applicants for call centers.
English-language skills benefit more than call centers, of course. “The creation of this cluster,” says Sotomonte, “built an ecosystem that lets us manage not just customer care, but also computer technical support, healthcare, energy, and logistics to expand our portfolio.” Manufacturers selling to the U.S. market, hotels welcoming overseas visitors, transport firms serving Florida and other international businesses all gain from staff versed in English, says Vicky Ibañez, executive director of AmCham-Barranquilla since its foundation in 1998. She’s grown her group to become the second largest of Colombia’s five AmCham chapters and biggest for its city size, now counting nearly 200 affiliates.
Ibañez knows the importance of English from the many business missions she has organized to cities in Florida, including Tampa, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee. A mission to Miami in August featured 14 Barranquilla companies that held 180-plus meetings with potential partners for import, export, and two-way investment. “You can’t go to the U.S. for business and not know English,” Ibañez says. “That’s why we back this bilingual education project.”
