Jesse Derkx

During an internship at a media agency in his early twenties, Jesse was offered to stay on a long term basis. He rejected the job offer, because he couldn’t imagine his life in an office all day. Out of this aversion to the office, grew a love for coworking spaces, which proved that working at an office could be dynamic, fun and productive. After being a user of these spaces, Jesse joined Barcelona-based operator OneCoWork and learned about the day-to-day operations and financials behind this concept. As commercial director, he was responsible for the high occupancy of the centres, positioning the brand, improving on product offering, and maintaining relations with internal and external stakeholders.
As coworking became more mainstream, Jesse joined CBRE to set up the Agile Practice (flex) department. This department helps operators by introducing new clients to them, as well as assisting in their expansion plans. Since late last year, he has taken up an initiative on the EMEA level in which CBRE helps larger companies and multinationals introducing flex elements in their real estate portfolios. As such, the department uses technology to analyse these portfolios and understand where flexibility can be introduced as an optimisation tool.