Work Options adds investors to speed growth of company

SUPERIOR – Work Options Group, a provider of backup dependent-care services for employers throughout the U.S. and Canada, has received an undisclosed amount of capital from outside investors.

Allen & Co., St. Charles Capital, Countryside Asset Management Corp. and Vestar Capital Partners led the round.

The investment follows the Superior-based company’s recent addition of clients including Microsoft, Princeton University, Reuters and The Children’s Hospital in Denver.

Company founder Cynthia Carrillo switches from chief executive officer to president, and Christopher Gatti switches from president to chief executive.

The company’s new directors are Robert Benson, chairman of ABMP, former president of Children’s World and a former member of the board of directors of Bright Horizons; Larry Jones, former CEO of Activant Solutions, MessageMedia and Neodata Services Inc.; and John Moritz, president of Countryside Asset Management Corp.

This was the first time in its 20 years in business that the company took on outside investors, Carrillo said.

Carrillo said it was a choice of growing the company from within or seeking outside capital that would allow the company to grow exponentially over the next few years. “We began telling the story of what we do and ended up with a pretty significant group of folks who decided to invest in the company,” Carrillo said.

Carrillo and Gatti, who has been with Work Options for three years, decided to switch job titles to more reflect their job responsibilities, Carrillo said. Gatti has more of the traditional CEO duties ? dealing with people and setting business objectives ? while Carrillo does more of the sales, account management and marketing.

The money will be used to market Work Options nationwide, Carrillo said. “We’ve been bringing in key staff and building awareness in a very methodical and targeted way.”

The company has nearly doubled its employee base during 2006, growing from 28 to 50, and expects to add another five or six workers by the end of the year.

Work Options also opened small sales offices in Boston, New York and Washington state.

The investors are looking for a “significant” return on their investment in three to five years, Carrillo said. That could happen in a number of different ways, she said, probably along the lines of new product development.

Contact Caron Schwartz Ellis at 303-440-4950 or e-mail csellis@bcbr.com.

on Facebook on LinkedIn