Merkle (www.merkle.com), a leading customer relationship marketing (CRM) firm and the nation’s largest privately-held agency, today announced that it is opening its second office in China, in the leading software and engineering city of Nanjing.  Merkle, which opened its first international office in Shanghai in 2010, currently employs more than 150 people in Shanghai. The Nanjing office will open with 100 new employees and expects to double that number by 2014.

“As our client base became increasingly global, we have placed a greater emphasis on the expansion of Merkle’s delivery capability in the Global Delivery Center in China,” said Zhengda Shen, president, Merkle APAC.  “We are expanding to meet the growing demand of our global clients by attracting world-class talent in Nanjing. In addition, we will be focusing on the development of local business inside China to meet their rapidly growing need to build deeper direct relationships with their customers,” added Shen.

Merkle, which continually experiences double digital growth year over year by providing customer analytics and digital marketing for global leaders, selected Nanjing for its newest global office because of the exceptional local talent. The city is surrounded by at least five of the top Chinese universities focused on relevant subject areas like computer science, engineering, information services and statistics. Nanjing is centrally located, situated less than 200 miles from Shanghai, so employees will be able to travel easily between the two offices by train.

“Expanding Merkle’s global business in Nanjing was a natural next step for our company. And the city of Nanjing has made the entry into the community a very smooth and welcoming experience,” said Raymond Wu, vice president, Merkle China. “As we increase the global footprint of our CRM capabilities, it is important to our success that our corporate culture follow suit; so our employees overseas enjoy the same work-hard, play-hard philosophy and environment as our domestic teams. We’ve even built the office with the same modern look and feel and creative features as our corporate headquarters in the United States.”