John Cheney

As a successful entrepreneur John has over thirty years’ experience in the software industry; twenty of which have been running cloud computing businesses in Europe and North America. Prior to Workbooks, John founded two previous cloud software companies, both of which have been successfully sold.

John leads the team at Workbooks, a leading supplier of CRM and marketing automation solutions to mid-size companies.  Workbooks' CRM platform helps organizations grow revenues and streamline business processes. John has been involved in helping hundreds of companies improve their sales and marketing execution across a range of industries including manufacturing.

Prior to Workbooks, John founded BlackSpider Technologies in 2002 and successfully grew the company to become an award-winning provider of on-demand email and web security services to over 2,500 organizations world-wide. He led the company through Angel and Venture Capital Financing, the launch of award-winning services: MailControl and WebDefence, and international expansion. John successfully sold the company in July 2006 to SurfControl for $40m.

Following the successful sale John joined the Executive Management Team at SurfControl to run Marketing and Product Management. John was a key member of the senior management team which led the company through a successful sale to Websense for $400m in October
2007.