Blog
Blog | 5 min read
What makes a region resilience-ready? Greater Richmond has some answers.
April 9, 2026
EY’s Damian Klute has worked across the globe. He chose Greater Richmond — and he’ll tell you exactly why.
When companies think about where to plant a flag at a regional hub, a new office or place to grow, the conversation usually starts with cost and ends with talent. But Damian Klute, a leader at EY with experience spanning 150 countries, argues that the most resilient companies think differently. They look for the places that offer all the advantages of a major market without the friction that comes with one. For Klute, that place is Greater Richmond, Virginia.
Having lived across the country and worked across the globe, Klute speaks from real experience when he says Richmond has “something special.” His perspective is worth paying attention to — and not just because EY has chosen to build a meaningful local presence here.
All the ingredients, none of the friction
Ask Klute what makes the Richmond Region stand out and he doesn’t hesitate. “It has many of the things that a larger metropolitan market may have,” he says, “without the same level of friction.”
That friction — the gridlock, the cost of living, the competition for talent that drives up wages faster than productivity — is a real tax on resilience. Companies headquartered in gateway cities often spend enormous energy just managing the overhead of being there. Richmond sidesteps most of that. It’s an affordable region with a short commute, a livable culture and a business community that punches well above its weight.
A talent pipeline that’s the real deal
Talent is the word every executive uses. Richmond delivers on it. Klute points to the region’s universities as “the cream of the crop” — and notes that any employer here can tap into that ecosystem directly.
That access matters more than ever. Klute believes the workforce of the future needs to be “digitally fluent” — not necessarily expert coders, but people who understand how technology is reshaping the world and can operate confidently within it. Richmond’s academic institutions are producing exactly that kind of talent, and the region’s workforce development programs are reinforcing it at every level.
For companies that take their talent strategy seriously — and Klute is emphatic that they should — Richmond offers a rare combination: a large, high-quality pool that isn’t yet fully competed-over. That window won’t stay open forever.
Resilience is built here, not bolted on
Klute has a clear framework for what makes companies genuinely resilient: they’re data-driven, they invest in their people, they build stable core processes and they use those stable cores to innovate quickly at the edges. Location plays into all of it.
A region with lower operational friction lets companies invest more in the things that actually build resilience — talent development, process improvement and technology adoption. When you’re not hemorrhaging budget on real estate and turnover, you can build the kind of stable foundation that lets you move fast when the moment calls for it.
“The organizations that can manage risk the best are going to be the ones that outperform,” Klute says. Richmond is, in many ways, a low-risk bet — one that quietly improves the odds across every dimension of resilience.
Culture and community as competitive advantage
Resilient companies don’t just survive disruption — they transform through it. And transformation is a people problem before it’s anything else. That’s why Klute keeps coming back to culture and purpose.
Richmond’s culture reinforces exactly what purpose-driven companies need. It’s a region with a vibrant restaurant scene, world-class museums and a genuine sense of community — the kind of place where people actually want to live, not just work. That matters enormously for employee retention and recruitment. When employees are rooted in a place they love, they’re more engaged, more loyal and more willing to grow alongside the organization.
Klute, who has had his pick of places to call home, chose Richmond. His team of 300 EY professionals is here by design, not default. “What we say and what we do matters,” he says of building culture at the local level. Richmond makes that easier.
The window is open — and it won’t stay that way
Klute’s advice to any CEO building for the long term is simple: stop focusing on the capabilities that got you here, and start building the ones that will take you to the next level. For a growing number of companies, Greater Richmond is where that next level begins.
The region offers affordability, talent, livability and a business ecosystem that is growing fast — but hasn’t yet priced out the companies that would benefit most from being here. The question isn’t whether Greater Richmond can support a resilient, future-ready company. It’s whether your company will be here to take advantage of it.
This post is part of Richmond Next, a series produced in partnership with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, spotlighting the innovators, builders and change-makers driving growth across Greater Richmond.
