The deal comes only months after last year’s $1.77 billion purchase of LifeWorks, which runs pension plans, absence management and other services for 25,000 organisations.
Darren Entwistle (pictured), chair of the board of Telus International and president and CEO of Telus, said: “In joining our team, WillowTree has further diversified Telus International’s expansive client base, adding new marquee customers and amplifying cross-selling competencies, globally.”
Jeff Puritt, president and CEO of Telus International, said: “This latest acquisition, our tenth since 2005, represents the next chapter in our team’s ongoing execution of our successful growth strategy.”
He said it showed “a concerted focus on building upon our existing strengths, adding new high-value capabilities, further diversifying our client base and broadening our geographic footprint”.
Entwistle added: “Our combined teams have a tremendous opportunity to accelerate Telus’s digital transformation and support key product development across our business, most notably, within health and agriculture and consumer goods.”
Telus said its international unit has “now grown to encompass a diverse, multilingual team of more than 70,000 team members, a global AI community of more than one million trained annotators and 69 delivery centres”. It has digital design studios in 30 countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia.
Tobias Dengel, president of WillowTree, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, said: “As we combine our distinct yet complementary capabilities, the result is a truly unique omnichannel value proposition that we are able to provide our clients, ranging from digital strategy, design and development to content moderation, data annotation and complete customer experience management.”
