Founder and CEO, Worktopia Inc.
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As the founder of Worktopia, John Arenas leads the company as a proven executive and successful entrepreneur, with more than 25 years of experience developing and managing enterprises serving the corporate demand for meeting space and instant office space. John has consistently demonstrated an ability to drive business value by creating products and services that offer cost savings, control and efficiency through automation.
Prior to starting Worktopia, John served as president and GM of the Americas for Regus plc, (RGU: London Stock Exchange) a global provider of on-demand workspace including instant office space and meeting space, with annual revenues of over $1 billion. John lead a major restructuring of the company resulting in over $350MM in cash savings and a 10X increase in share price on flat, post 9/11 revenues.
John joined Regus upon the sale of Stratis Business Centers, where he was CEO and founder. At Stratis, John enabled rapid growth of business centers through scalable development and deployment of proprietary technological infrastructure, including centralized facilities management and remote touchless operational support for integrated service delivery of voice data, scheduling and billing systems over 20 offices across the U.S. First round Stratis investors earned an 8X return, and Stratis remains a leading Regus brand.
John’s career prior to Stratis also included experience in commercial real estate, as an institutional real estate lender for office buildings at Citigroup and a project engineer for Turner Corporation. He holds a B.S. degree in civil engineering from Rutgers University and a Masters degree in business administration from the University of Michigan.
John is co-chair of the Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association’s (HEDNA’s) Group Online Committee, which includes over a dozen leading hotel, travel distribution and technology professionals. His committee has worked with a major independent research company to publish a white paper on the automation of traditional group marketing and buying processes for online booking of meeting facilities and group room nights.
John serves as a Trustee of the Jay Heritage Center, a non-profit historic preservation and educational center in Rye, N.Y.
Prior to starting Worktopia, John served as President and GM of the Americas for Regus,plc, (RGU: London Stock Exchange) a global provider of on-demand workspace including instant office space and meeting space, with annual revenues of over $1 billion. John lead a major restructuring of the company resulting in over $350MM in cash savings and a 10X increase in share price on flat, post 9/11 revenues.
John joined Regus upon the sale of Stratis Business Centers, where he was CEO and founder. At Stratis, John enabled rapid growth of business centers through scalable development and deployment of proprietary technological infrastructure, including centralized facilities management and remote touchless operational support for integrated service delivery of voice data, scheduling and billing systems over 20 offices across the U.S. First round Stratis investors earned an 8X return, and Stratis remains a leading Regus brand.
John’s career prior to Stratis also included experience in commercial real estate, as an institutional real estate lender for office buildings at Citigroup and a project engineer for Turner Corporation. He holds a B.S. degree in civil engineering from Rutgers University and a Masters degree in business administration from the University of Michigan.
John is co-chair of the Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association’s (HEDNA’s) Group Online Committee, which includes over a dozen leading hotel, travel distribution and technology professionals. His committee has worked with a major independent research company to publish a white paper on the automation of traditional group marketing and buying processes for online booking of meeting facilities and group room nights.
John serves as a Trustee of the Jay Heritage Center, a non-profit historic preservation and educational center in Rye, N.Y.