Building a community

WBJ Observer sits down with Hadley Dean, CEO of Compass Offices EMEA, to talk about synergies emerging between companies of different sizes and from different industries, and how landlords can support them

Interview by Beata Socha

WBJ Observer: Who are your tenants?

Hadley Dean: They’re 50 percent international and 50 percent local. We’ve got a Swiss bank, a real estate asset management firm, an FX business, a recruitment agency, a consultancy, a few start-ups and freelancers, and more are coming. People who work here know each other by name. You can’t build a community when you’ve got 1,000 people. It needs to be a relatively small, personal environment.

How long are typical leases?

Our average corporate members will be here 11 months. In a center like this you typically have bigger tenants at first, and then, as locations stabilize, they become a bit smaller. And then you can really play with building a community.

Is there any benefit to building a community?

Absolutely, because everyone helps each other. For example, we have a boutique M&A broker. They were selling a fizzy drink company. The particulars were done in English and they’re not native English speakers. I wasn’t here, so they went to another English speaker to get help reading through the deal. We heard about it and we decided to give them a meeting room for a day. We actively encourage our members to help each other. Another example: the boyfriend of one of our members is the biggest premium tea importer, so we buy all our tea from him. It’s amazing. We try to look out for one another.

What about younger firms and start-ups? How can they benefit from it?

Our center provides workspace solutions that are adaptable to business’ needs and growth. For young companies, we offer a like-minded community that can give access to mentorship, in addition to educational workshops, which we hold regularly.

Apart from workshops, what other events do you organize to integrate your community?

We arrange wine tastings and tea tastings, we organize concerts, yoga days, healthy days, and cooking sessions. Thanks to these events you get to know people in other industries. All industries have the same problems; they’re just solved in different ways. Once people feel comfortable enough with each other, they start sharing and exchanging advice, ideas, they help solve each other’s problems.

You’ve recently moved your first tenant, or member, into your new office in the Plac Unii scheme. How is the commercialization going with your new location?

We’ve already got 35 percent of the space filled.

Why do companies choose Compass Offices rather than lease their own space?

Businesses need to be agile if we want to be a knowledge and innovation-based economy. We work with various enterprises from start-ups to multinational companies. We understand that the current conventional workspace and working style might not always be suitable for their business plan.