Dan Suozzi, who joined commercial real estate software firm Essensys last year, has a new job focused on driving growth across North America at the London-based firm.
Suozzi, based in New York City, has been promoted to chief revenue officer. He previously served as senior vice president for the East Coast.
Essensys offers software for workspace and flexible office providers. Its clients include flexible office company Industrious and global development firm Tishman Speyer.
The sheer size of the U.S. office market makes North America a critical target for a company that's listed on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market.
"The landscape of the United States is just much more massive" than other countries, Suozzi said in an interview. "Just the market of Manhattan alone is a massive market. So it's a market where we only have five or six sales people now, which will grow to about 20 to 25 in the next 12 months.
Founded in the United Kingdom in 2006, Essensys sees North America as a key growth market. In fact, last month, Essensys founder and CEO Mark Furness told CoStar News that "North America is the single biggest market opportunity" for the firm.
The firm already has made inroads on the continent, where it also does business in Canada. The chief revenue position for North America is a new one.
Suozzi said Essensys software provides a "digital backbone for commercial real estate" and effectively helps owners and operators "digitize their buildings" by using technology to enhance their operations.
"There's a lot of forward-thinking owners that want to make digital transformation that we need to be in front of," he said.
The commercial property operations software field, however, is getting more competitive. Last month, Serendipity Labs formed a new subsidiary called WorkplaceCloud that offers software designed to enable landlords to offer white-label flexible offices without bringing in a third party to manage the spaces.
In July, WeWork plans to launch new workplace management software of its own. It said the product would enable companies to offer employees the ability to book a desk, private office or conference room in any company-leased or owned office space in any WeWork or WeWork-affiliated location.
Suozzi has been in the commercial real estate business since he graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges Geneva, New York, in 2005. He started his career at the Staubach Co. and joined JLL when it acquired Staubach in 2008.
He worked at JLL for four years before becoming a director of real estate at flexible workspace provider Regus, now known as IWG.
As Essensys works to grow more rapidly in North America, "it's all about the landlords for us," and the firm has strong relationships with several global owners it plans to leverage, Suozzi said. For instance, Tishman Speyer uses Essensys software to help operate Tishman's Studio flexible workspace brand.
"And now it's just pouring fuel on the fire and launching into other cities with major owners," he said. "And we're growing organically in other cities through large international owners."
But, he said, Essensys' focus "is really going to be to be in those major metro areas and have boots on the ground to just have an uptick in conversations, meetings, opportunities, because every owner out there of scale has really started to understand that they need to future proof their assets."