Cowrks appoints former CBRE executive Rajat Gupta to lead growth function

Bengaluru-based Cowrks, which offers managed office spaces, has hired Rajat Gupta, a former executive at commercial real estate firm CBRE India, as its new chief growth officer.

In a statement, CoWrks India Private Limited, which operates the venture, stated that in his new role, Gupta will spearhead the company’s next stage of expansion and growth, including growing the firm’s revenue in India and abroad.

“CoWrks has achieved exponential growth in a short span of two years. With an industry expert like Rajat, we aim to build on this positioning and rapidly scale towards achieving multi-fold expansion in terms of members as well as centers,” Abhishek Goenka, chief executive of CoWrks stated.

An engineer and an MBA by educational qualification, Gupta previously served a 22-year stint for the Indian operations of Los Angeles-headquartered CBRE. In his last role at the organisation, he was elevated to managing director for advisory and transaction services in South Asia, a designation he assumed in 2015. In that role, he led the retail and investor leasing businesses for the firm in India and oversaw the office occupier services business in the western, northern and eastern regions of the country, according to information on the CBRE website.

“Coworking is the new driver in real estate and I’m excited to leverage my experience towards charting Cowrks’ growth in existing and new markets. With an increasing number of large corporates opting for shared workspaces, it is an interesting phase for the industry,” Gupta, chief growth officer at Cowrks stated.

Founded in 2016 by Sidharth Menda, Cowrks offers managed workspaces for companies and claims to deploy technology with features that include visitor management system, a private social networking app and digital meeting room booking among others

Currently managing two million square foot of properties and around 25,000 members, the company has operations across 15 locations in Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi NCR and Hyderabad.

Cowrks operates in a space which also has some significantly homegrown and well-funded players like Awfis and SoftBank-backed global heavyweight WeWorks, which entered the Indian market in July 2017. Recently, budget hospitality firm OYO entered the space with its offering called Power Station.