The company’s new US headquarters will be located in Chicago, IL with the newly-hired North America CEO Joe Cusick leading a team of 11 consultants serving clients in the United States, Mexico, and Chile.

Specialised construction solutions provided by the firm include cost management, estimating, commercial management, project controls, and bills of quantities — all of which help industry-leading companies locate cost- and time-saving efficiencies whilst proactively managing and mitigating risk in their construction investments.

Scottish Development International (SDI) supported the expansion through grant funding received via its International Manager for Hire programme.

Scott Smyth, founder and CEO of Soben, said: “For the past ten years our construction consultancy solutions have been disrupting the market in the UK and Europe. We’ve now seen strong demand for our services in North America, especially as the US economy begins to reopen and infrastructure spending reaches historic levels. Joe has a deep understanding of commercial and industrial real estate, data centres, life sciences, infrastructure, and energy industries. We’re thrilled to have him at the helm of our expanding North American operation as we celebrate ten years in business.”

Soben’s 90-person UK team has previously completed commissions on high profile projects such as Vauxhall’s One Nine Elms and Aykon Tower, Euston Station and High Speed 2, as well as with confidential clients on data centre projects in the UK, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Spain.

The new US team plans to focus on developer clients in the mission-critical, data centre, infrastructure, life sciences, and renewable energy sectors.

Joe Cusick, North America CEO, added: “I am very excited to join the Soben team in the Americas. The opportunity to grow a business from the ground up and to create a construction consultancy focused on, and tailored for, the US market made the decision an easy one to make. The determination, support, and enthusiasm from the rest of the Soben team has also been a key factor in me coming onboard.”

Soben’s expansion into the US stemmed from the business recently securing a leading West Coast data centre developer as an anchor client.

Joe Cusick was previously a director at Linesight, a professional services consultancy focused on the global construction industry, where he led the project controls delivery on a $2 billion data centre program and was engaged on more than $8bn in construction projects. Prior to Linesight, he held strategic roles at Currie & Brown and Faithful+Gould.