When two of the most experienced operators in the US managed services industry went looking for somewhere to plant their international flag, Belfast didn't just make the shortlist. It made the decision easy.
Mark Clayman and Gina Murphy have spent the better part of three decades building, acquiring, scaling, and transforming technology services companies. They know what a good market looks like. They know what good talent feels like.
"There's just a good energy about this place," said Clayman, speaking at the official opening of Netrio's expanded Belfast office. "It's kind of infectious. It kind of fires off one another — just in terms of the city itself, this area, the building, and then the individuals. It just helps with the energy in the organisation."
READ MORE: Netrio Officially Opens Expanded Belfast Office, Marking a New Chapter in Its Global Growth Story
That energy, as it turns out, is backed by something more structural: a city that has spent two decades methodically constructing one of Europe's most compelling technology ecosystems, and a talent base that Netrio has already put to work supporting some of the world's most consequential organisations.
Before asking why Belfast made commercial sense, it is worth understanding what Netrio's Belfast team actually does and what it doesn’t do. Netrio's Belfast operation is not a call centre. It is not a cost-saving measure staffed with entry-level technicians handling routine queries. It is, in Gina Murphy's words, "every facet of the company" Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 engineering, senior technical talent, customer success, and revenue enablement, all operating as a fully integrated part of a global delivery model.
The Belfast team supports a global client base that includes private equity firms managing portfolios of 150 companies, ranging from a few hundred million to $15 billion in revenue. They also include hospitals where, if the technology fails, patient intake systems go dark and emergency departments cannot function. They further include manufacturing plants where an unresolved connectivity issue means products don't leave the floor.
"You would be shocked if you understood the true impact of who our team here is supporting," said Clayman. "They are truly supporting organisations that operate globally — manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, supply chain. When they're responding to a ticket, protecting an office from a security standpoint, or keeping a connectivity environment running, they are truly supporting the global economy. There's no doubt about it."
It is a point Murphy reinforces with characteristic directness: "That's the magnitude of what we do. And we could actually do a better job letting people understand that."
When Netrio inherited the Belfast team through the Agio acquisition, what they found was a group of people who had already built something remarkable: NetrioNow, the company's proprietary AI-powered service delivery platform that is now central to how Netrio differentiates itself in a crowded and increasingly commoditised market.
That kind of engineering capability does not emerge by accident. It emerges from a city with two world-class universities feeding a consistent pipeline of technically skilled, professionally motivated graduates directly into a commercial technology sector populated by global names including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Accenture and SAP.
"The schooling here gives people a tremendous leg up from other areas we've even been in," said Murphy. "It's a phenomenal place for us to be, from the schools all the way through to internship programmes to full-time careers."
For Clayman, the concentration matters as much as the quality. "There's a concentration of good talent," he said. "And beyond the skills, there's just a good energy." In a business where culture and human connection are as important as technical capability where, as Murphy puts it, "no one wants to talk to a chatbot when their computer breaks" that energy is not a soft consideration. It is a business-critical one.
Netrio's global delivery model now rests on three pillars: Minneapolis, Belfast, and Pune, India. It is a configuration that did not happen by design so much as by recognition through the Agio acquisition, of what Belfast could offer on a global scale.
The time zone fit is, as Clayman explains, almost perfect. Belfast bridges the gap between US East Coast and West Coast business hours, with Pune extending coverage into the early hours that neither North American hub can comfortably reach. Together, the three centres provide genuine 24x7x365 support without the strain and cost of forcing any single team to work antisocial hours.
"Belfast and the UK fit right in the middle, those key hours that we need to support for our customers from East Coast to West Coast," said Clayman. "It's a good mix."
What distinguishes Netrio's Belfast expansion from a simple property decision is the depth of intent behind it. The company has joined the Belfast Chamber of Commerce. It is actively scoping the recruitment of sales and account management staff to pursue customers in Northern Ireland and across the UK as well as exploring internship programmes with local universities.
"Every time we're out here, the team keeps asking: when are we going to have a go-to-market initiative?" said Clayman. "We have our own place now. We've got the breadth of skill set and people. It's time to start targeting this area and the broader UK."
For Murphy, the expansion is simply the natural expression of what Netrio found when it first looked closely at Belfast: "We saw the office and we thought: we want to triple the size. Because we know the resources here are phenomenal, and this is going to be part of our growth trajectory."
There is a version of Belfast's technology story that its own inhabitants sometimes struggle to internalise, the idea that a city of this size, with this history, could genuinely be operating at the centre of the global economy. Netrio's leadership would push back on any such hesitation.
"Belfast, no less than anybody else, should be really proud of it," said Clayman. "They are the backbone of businesses functioning well."
That is not marketing language. It is operational fact and it is the reason Netrio didn't just pass through Belfast. It stayed, expanded, and is only getting started.
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