Dan Suozzi Office-space company Breather is stocking its executive ranks in a bid to ramp up expansion. The firm, which offers meeting spaces on an hourly basis, and office space from a day to months at a time, has hired former Regus executive Dan Suozzi to lead its real estate division. He started Friday. “My main priority is to expand the portfolio,” said Suozzi. That mission comes at a tumultuous time for real estate startups. Many face a reckoning as they seek to raise money from investors increasingly looking for profits rather than just breakneck growth — a lesson from WeWork’s failed IPO plans and massive drop in valuation. “Growth is a key driver, but profitability is going to be more and more of a focus in the wake of what’s happened with WeWork,” Suozzi said. He pointed to his experience at Regus, which has been profitable for years. “There’s a pathway there.” Breather, which launched in Montreal in 2012, has raised $120 million, in rounds led by Menlo Ventures and RRE Ventures. The company has said its clients include Pandora, Spotify, Anheuser-Busch, Apple, Uber, Google and Facebook. It has 500 spaces in 300 buildings, across 10 cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto and London, according to the company. Breather has undergone an executive overhaul in the past year. After raising $45 million in June last year, its co-founder Julien Smith left his position as CEO. He was replaced in January by Bryan Murphy, a former eBay executive. Over the summer, Breather also installed a new chief technology officer, Philippe Bouffaut, who came over from Cision. Suozzi’s new title is chief real estate officer. He had been chief revenue officer at WorkFrame, a workflow solutions platform acquired by Newmark Knight Frank last month. Before that he oversaw Regus’ real estate transactions on the East Coast from 2012 to 2017.
Breather has hired former Regus executive Dan Suozzi to lead its real estate division. The Montreal-based company, which has 10 spaces spread across 500 cities, offers meeting rooms on an hourly basis and rents out office spaces for periods ranging from a day to months at a time. Suozzi, who most recently worked as chief revenue officer at WorkFrame, said his main priority would be to expand Breather's portfolio.