New CEO has Big Growth Plans for UCB

United Collection Bureau’s new CEO Sanju Sharma has big plans for the collection agency including doubling its employee count in the next 18 months, he told insideARM.com this morning.

UCB named Sharma CEO today, promoting him from chief operating officer, taking the place of owner and chairman Sam Rickard who had been acting as CEO. “Sharma has a vision and growth plan for our company that is very exciting to all of us here at UCB,” said Rickard in the release.

Sharma said that UCB will use its current call center capacity to double its staff of about 1,200 workers at nine fully operational call centers in the U.S.

Sharma said its recently opened a 420-seat call center in San Jose, Costa Rica is operational, but not fully staffed. UCB also will bring online a new 475-person call center in Tucson by the end of the year. These centers, along with unused capacity in other offices, will allow UCB to reach Sharma’s growth plans. “Capacity is definitely not one of our current challenges,” he commented.

The company has nearly tripled in size in the past four years, Sharma said.

Sharma returned to UCB four years ago as COO after working with the firm from 1993 to 1999 in various collection operations capacities, including as collection manager and director. In the intervening years between UCB posts, Sharma worked for IntelliRisk Management (IRMC) and consulted in the call center operations space.