Oscar Vela will be the speaker at the next Matins ESADE session with the talk “From Maresme to Los Angeles”. Oscar is currently the company’s global CEO. He has successfully steered the company over the last ten years and is now ready to take it even further in its next growth stage. During this session he will explain how he achieved all this and the strategic changes he expects the company to undertake along the road to becoming the global leader.
The creation of a global leader with a local touch. Since its creation in 1968 in a service area in the Maresme region of Catalonia, Areas has become a global leader and benchmark in the food and beverage and travel retail industries. Each year, Areas serves 340 million customers in their 2,100 restaurants and POS in 12 European countries, USA, Mexico and Chile. Areas has a culture of operational excellence, a thorough understanding of travellers’ needs and an extremely wide range of catering concepts in their market. As a result, they are always able to provide an ideal combination for the 900,000 customers they serve each day in airports, train stations, motorway service stations, exhibition centres and leisure centres.
Oscar Vela
Oscar Vela Nebot is the CEO of Areas, a global leader in the food and beverage and travel retail industries based in Barcelona, with a turnover of €1,832 million in 2018. Every year, Areas serve 340 million customers in their 2,100 restaurants and shops in airports, motorway service stations and railway stations in 12 countries across Europe and America.
Oscar Vela started work in 1990 at Nutrexpa where he held several positions of responsibility with the staff of the board and the planning and control division. After 7 years with the Catalan company, he joined the Italian multinational Unichips as international director of management control and planning.
Oscar always focussed on food and in 2001 he began to work in the food and catering industry for the VC fund Nazca, with the buyout of the tapas chain Lizarrán. Vela achieved his aim of transforming the small local chain into the No. 1 for tapas around the globe with outlets in USA, Mexico, Germany, Italy and Portugal.
In 2009, Oscar Vela joined Areas as managing director for Spain and Portugal and subsequently Latin America. As a result of his success in corporate development based on operational excellence, innovation and customer service, in June 2018, he was appointed CEO of Areas worldwide, a position he still holds.
Since the buyout of Areas by the VC fund PAI Partners in July 2019, Vela has been involved in the design and implementation of the company’s strategic plan for its new growth stage with a view to becoming the world leader in this industry.
Vela has a degree in economics and business administration and in marketing and market research (University of Barcelona).
