The native Hungarian form of this personal name is Árvai Péter. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Peter Arvai, 2010

Peter Arvai (born October 26, 1979) is a Hungarian/Swedish entrepreneur and activist. He is the Executive Chairman, co-founder and former CEO of Prezi, a cloud-based presentation software company. As an entrepreneur, he founded omvard.se in Sweden, and co-founded Prezi in 2009 along with designer Adam Somlai-Fischer and computer scientist and university professor Peter Halacsy. As of 2020, Prezi has more than 100 million users worldwide.

Early life and education

Arvai was born in Karlskoga, Sweden to Hungarian parents. He has lived in Tokyo, Stockholm, Singapore, San Francisco and Budapest, and is a graduate of Stockholm University.[1] While in Japan, he studied Japanese and completed a training program at Fuji Xerox.[2] As part of his business program, Arvai studied economics in Singapore for an exchange semester, and was one of the first batch of students to attend the newly introduced Master in Media Technology and Engineering program (1999-2005) at the Royal Institute of Technology.[2] After graduating Arvai co-founded the program's alumni group.[3]

Career

Arvai was the Vice President of Product Portfolio for Mobispine, a Swedish mobile communications company. He developed the first mobile news reader app through his work on a mobile innovator to track TED Talks on mobile devices, with Joacim Boivie and Joakim Hilj.[4] In Sweden, Arvai started omvard.se, a company that helped patients compare hospital treatment outcomes. In 2009, omvard.se won the Best Web Site Award from Swedish magazine Internetworld.[5]

In 2009, Arvai co-founded Prezi, a presentation software, with Ádám Somlai-Fischer and Péter Halácsy. He approached TED Conference given the companies’ common vision of promoting the open exchange of ideas and pitched the investment idea to the conference.[6][7] TED Conference, Accel Partners and Sunstone Capital were Prezi's investors that participated in Series A and Series B funding rounds.[8][9][10] In November 2014, a C Series $57 million investment was led by Spectrum Equity and Accel Partners.[11]

In March 2014, Arvai met with then-U.S. President Barack Obama in support of the President’s TechEd program.[12] In May 2017, Prezi bought the Latvian-based software company Infogram, which specializes in data visualization; it became Prezi Design. [13] In late 2019, Prezi launched Prezi Video, which allows users to add graphics into the primary screen of videos in realtime, like a news broadcast.[14][15]

In May 2017, Prezi bought the Latvian-based software company Infogram, which specializes in data visualization and became Prezi Design.[16] He led the launch of Prezi Video in November 2019, which allows users to give virtual presentations in the screen of live or recorded videos, like a news broadcast.[17][18] In July 2020, Peter decided to step back from the CEO role, putting Jim Szafranski, the former COO of Prezi, in charge.[19] As of 2020, Prezi has more than 100 million users worldwide.[20]

Other work

Arvai is co-founder and chairman of the organization Bridge Budapest, which publishes about five million inspirational stories each year.[21] Since its inception in 2013, the organization has launched several campaigns, including the Conscious Entrepreneurial Initiative or the Edison Platform, which organizes summer camps for hundreds of children.[22]

Together with Google and espell, Arvai founded WeAreOpen, a nonprofit organization dedicated to openness, justice and change.[9][23] By November 2019, more than 1000 companies/organizations representing over 75,000 employees had joined the initiative.[24] Arvai is also one of the founders of StartUp Hungary.[25]

Personal life

Arvai speaks English, Swedish, Hungarian and Japanese fluently and is a Yoga and meditation enthusiast.[2][26] He was the first visibly openly gay CEO in Hungary, coming out in 2015 in a Forbes piece. [27] Arvai and Prezi participate in the Budapest Pride event in Budapest.[28]

Awards

  • 2014: European Tech Startups Award for Best Startup Co-Founders[29]
  • 2014: European Web Entrepreneur of the Year[30]
  • 2015: Executive of the Year – Business Services: Bronze Stevie Winner[31]
  • 2016: Number 11 on the 2016 OUTstanding & Financial Times Leading LGBT Executives List of 100[32]
  • 2018: Number 3 on the 2018 Financial Times LGBT Executive Diversity list of 100 executives worldwide.[33]

Publications

Peter Arvai is author of "Developing the Business Case for a New Mobile Service: An Exercise in Business Model Designing" - VDM Verlag June 25, 2008.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 Developing the Business Case for a New Mobile Service, ISBN 978-3-639-04815-5
  2. 1 2 3 "Peter Arvai's Path From Hungary to Leading Prezi". The New York Times. 13 November 2010. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  3. ↑ Alumni group Archived 18 April 2013 at archive.today
  4. ↑ "This Innovator Spent All of His Money to Fly to a 20-Minute Meeting and Walked Out With a $1.5 Million Investment". Entrepreneur. 10 October 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  5. ↑ "De gör Sveriges bästa sajt". Internetworld. 11 November 2009. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  6. ↑ "Prezi Founders". Dailybrink.com. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  7. ↑ Detail about investment on Prezi Archived 15 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ Prezi Gains VC Funding And Jack Dorsey As An Advisor, Techcrunch, July 20th, 2009
  9. 1 2 "Openly gay Hungarian CEO embraces inclusion". Financial Times. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  10. ↑ "Peter Arvai". IDcee. 2014. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  11. ↑ "Prezi Receives $57 Million Investment From Spectrum Equity and Accel Partners". Market Watch. 19 November 2014. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  12. ↑ "Barack Obama welcomed Prezi's Chief Executive". Daily News Hungary. 3 March 2014. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  13. ↑ "Prezi makes its first acquisition, snaps up Latvian data visualization startup Infogram". Venturebeat.com. 16 May 2017. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  14. ↑ MacLellan, Lila (24 January 2020). "Prezi wants to make you the Rachel Maddow of your office". qz.com. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  15. ↑ "Prezi's Video Tool Improves Live Presentations, CEO Says". Bloomberg. 25 November 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  16. ↑ "Prezi makes its first acquisition, snaps up Latvian data visualization startup Infogram". Venturebeat.com. 16 May 2017. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  17. ↑ MacLellan, Lila (24 January 2020). "Prezi wants to make you the Rachel Maddow of your office". qz.com. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  18. ↑ "Prezi's Video Tool Improves Live Presentations, CEO Says". Bloomberg. 25 November 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  19. ↑ "Prezi Co-founder Retires After 12 Years". Hungary Today. 29 July 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  20. ↑ "Prezi introduces dynamic video teaching tools as education moves online". Venture Beat. 16 October 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  21. ↑ "Peter Arvai". Picturedfutures.com. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  22. ↑ "Bridge Budapest Reaches Milestone, Refocuses". Budapest Business Journal. 30 March 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  23. ↑ "How Prezi CEO and founder infuses core value of diversity into company's culture (video)". San Francisco Business Times. 14 June 2018. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  24. ↑ "Prezi cofounder Peter Arvai wants us to communicate better". Sifted.eu. 19 November 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  25. ↑ "Founders". Startuphungary.io. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  26. ↑ "Great Escapes: Prezi Founder Peter Arvai on How to Make Your Home a Refuge". Barrons. 3 July 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  27. ↑ "Árvai Péter: "Fontos, hogy tudjátok, meleg vagyok". hvg.hu (in Hungarian). 4 February 2015. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  28. ↑ "How Prezi CEO and founder infuses core value of diversity into company's culture (Video)". San Francisco Business Times. 14 June 2018. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  29. ↑ "Prezi wins at The Europas, the awards for Europe's tech startups". Silicon Goulash. 18 June 2018. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  30. ↑ "Prezi Co-Founder Wins European Entrepreneur Award". Hungary Today. 7 November 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  31. ↑ "The Stevie Award Trophy". The International Business Awards. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  32. ↑ "2016 OUTstanding and FT rankings". Financial Times. 24 October 2016. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  33. ↑ "Executive Diversity". Financial Times. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
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