Coworking Europe Podcast

WeWork has been, and still is to some extend, the most global coworking champion. One of the most valued startup in the world, the breakneck expansion was not without damages. Based on more than two hundred interviews, this book chronicles the breakneck speed at which WeWork's CEO built and grew his company along with Neumann's relationship to a world of investors, including Masayoshi Son of Softb...

Alisa Kapic is the VP Sales Northern Europe of IWG, the mother company supervising major Flex and Coworking brands in the world such as Regus, Spaces, Basepoint or Signature. Nowadays, with 3.400 locations around the world, IWG is by far the biggest provider of flexible workspace solution on the planet. It also was one of the first mover towards a multi-brands strategy in the field of coworking, i...

Inga Kayademir is the COO of Unicorn, one of Germany's most important coworking player, with 20 locations spread around Berlin, Munich, Cologne or Potsdam. The company is coming out of the Covid-19 crisis stronger. They manage to keep most of their members, raised money and kept their plans to open new locations. It's in Berlin that Unicorn is likely the most ambitious. "The capital is a very dyna...

Alessandro Nacci is the CEO of SOFIA Locks (technology partner of ISEO), an Italy based company developing IoT (Internet of things) related smart access solutions. They have been focusing a lot, lately, on the coworking industry as technology allows to flexibilize office and real estate assets. "Coworking and Coliving services is a very important area of development for modern access and wireless...

Joao Simoes is the co-founder of Idea Spaces, a Lisbon based coworking operator which started its activities in 2014 within a 400 m2 big space. Six years later, Idea Spaces is soon to open a third location, cumulating a total of 10.000 m2 surface under coworking management. "The strategy initiated in the early 2010's to make Lisbon a magnet for tech and foreign talents clearly delivered. The quali...

Viesturs Sosars is the co-founder of TechHub Riga. The tech coworking and incubator was launched eight years ago and since then played a major role structuring the Latvian tech and startup ecosystem and connecting it with the international tech scene. Named after TechHub London, one of the UK pioneer in the early 2010's, which has been among the most important players who supported the rise of the...

Francisco Vazquez is the Founder and President of 3G Office, a major Madrid based architecture firm operating in close to 50 countries, including Spain, Portugal and most of the Latin American countries. 3G Office designs corporate offices for big companies such as KPMG, Orange or Google. The last couple of years, coworking and flex workplace grew so much in 3G Office's portofolio that it now repr...

Daithi de Buitleir is the Chief Marketing Officer of Park Office, a Dublin based startup which optimizes the management of parking lots for companies and landlord. The service is a natural extension of what happens with hot desking management within flexible workplaces and coworking spaces. "Flexibility becomes the norm, especially in the post-Covid19 crisis", does he say. Park Office allows, a.o....

Henrik Saxborn is the CEO of Castellum, the second biggest commercial real estate company in Sweden. The Swedish company manages an assets portfolio of more than 600 properties, mainly in commercial real estate, representing a total value of more than 9 bn €. One year ago Castellum took over UnitedSpaces, one of the most famous coworking operators in Sweden, which is active in five cities and oper...

Michala Hrnčiarová is the founder of Coworking Cvernovka, a small coworking space located in the suburb of Bratislava, Slovakia, which also offers childcare services. In february 2020, just before the Covid19 outbreak, Coworking Cvernovka had just opened up it's second location, in a shopping mall.

John Williams and James Rankin are respectively CMO and Head of Research of The Instant Group, a multi-services company focused on Flexible Workspaces and Coworking products. The Instant Group has a unique position to spot the latest trends in the coworking market on the EMEA level has well as on the international field. Conversation with two very knowledgeable gentlemen who know a lot about the c...

Roksana Witusinski is the communication manager of the group Rent24, one of the biggest Europe based coworking operators. Founded in 2015 in Berlin, the company operates 70 locations on the continent and beyond like in Israel and in the US. Rent24 provides services to almost 35.000 members. Rent24 cultivates the idea of mixing freelancers, corporates and startups. The company has been growing rapi...

Christoph Hammer is Senior Vice President and Product Owner at ezeep, a cloud printing platform for coworking and flexible workspaces. ezeep stands for “easy printing“; the solution takes away the technical hassle of administrating network printers as well as tracking and charging printouts of coworking members. The company also cares about planting trees to offset the carbon footprint of coworkin...

Zsofi Toth is the "Navigator" at Puzl Coworking, a Bulgarian based coworking operator with a community of more than 600 members. She is also co-founder of the Budapest office. Puzl Coworking is working on the opening on new locations in Hungary and Romania with a model based on the reconversion of C Class Buildings and old factories into cool coworking communities with a focus on the digital indus...

Paul Nellist is the EMEA Managing Director of Hana, the coworking service launched by CBRE, the world biggest Real Estate advising and brokerage company. Hana is today a fully owned subsidiary of CBRE with operation in the UK and the US. The company operates 10 locations in total, 6 in the US and 4 in the UK (London and soon Manchester). The company has plans to open further spaces in Amsterdam, D...

Jenny Schäpper is the co-founder of Village Office, a cooperative gathering 72 coworking spaces all over Switzerland. Village Office signed up a deal with the Swiss Railway company to make 80 railway station coworking enabled. They will work closely with local coworking operators to deliver this mission. The goal is to increase the coworking offering in the smaller town and remote areas. Coworking...

Frank Zorn is the co-founder of Deskeo, nowadays one of the biggest coworking operators in France, with 75.000 m2 under management, spread across 50 locations, mainly in the Paris and Lyon areas. Deskeo is the French arm of the US coworking giant Knotel, that recently invested in the company. Knotel policy, so far, was to keep building on the local brand. Ahoy!, the Berlin based operator taken ove...

Jose Antonio Morales is the founder of a small Coworking Space located in the Slovenia countryside. No more than 14 people. Though, he made it financially sustainable. Five years later, things are going well. The model is different than the tradition commercial model big coworking brand operate in big metropoles. The Aurora model relies on a flexible cooperative approach, and could be replicated i...

Andri Rabetanety is senior lecturer in Real Estate finance at the Glion Institute of Higher Education. Expert in the hotel industry, Andri sees a similar economical value chain taking place in the coworking industry. In the hotel industry, the economical model is supported by three kinds of different players all focusing one of portion of the value chain. The property owner is responsible for the...

Olga Fomenko is the head of Marketing of the online workspace and meetingroom booking platform MatchOffice, based in Denmark and Ukraine. MatchOffice released its Report 2020 on the situation of coworking and flexworkspace in Europe and beyond. According to the surveyed spaces, more than 60% of them expect a very difficult situation still to last for the coming six months, before occupancy rate co...

Edouard Cambier is the founder of Seed Factory, a Flex Workspace and Coworking space operating in Brussels since the early 2000's. Edouard is also the president of the Belgian Workspace Association (BWA), which gathers more than 200 Belgian coworking and flex workspace members. Seed Factory pivoted immediately after the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. The space, which normally hosts more than 150 peop...

Barbara Inmann is the managing director of ImpactHub Vienna. The coworking space, which a.o. hosts the HQ of the global ImpactHub network (more than 100 non for profit coworking spaces and communities across the globe), and is one of the important coworking players within the Austrian coworking scene. In order to rapidly pivot due to the Covid-19 crisis, ImpactHub Vienna partnered up with one of i...

Lee Elliott is a based in London expert on Flexible workspace for the international real estate advise company Knight Frank. Lee is the co-author of a report on the new "Power of partnership" with the workplace as a service sector. "The coworking phenomenon has changed real estate for the better", say Lee Elliott. "However, we need more discipline to figure out what coworking is about. There is a...