51 years ago, Mark Dixon was a 16-year-old school leaver selling burgers out of a van. That grew into supplying bread rolls, and he eventually became one of the biggest hamburger bun manufacturers in the UK, selling that business for £800,000 at just 28.

Flush with cash, Dixon moved to Brussels and started a property rental business. While sitting in cafés, he noticed that poor deals on office leases were forcing business leaders to conduct their meetings next to him, competing with espresso machines for a place to talk shop. In answer, Dixon set up the flexible workspace provider, Regus in 1989.

Today, Regus is IWG (International Workplace Group), the world’s largest provider of flexible workspace with reportedly more than 4,600 locations currently open across 121 countries. Where rivals like WeWork have courted collapse on the promise of tech-platform overhype, IWG has taken the more disciplined scale-up approach – adapting its offering to post-pandemic working patterns and reducing its capital exposure through a shift towards managed and franchised centres.

When it began, Regus was funded entirely out of Dixon’s own pocket. He has made that money back, and then some. In 2025, IWG reported group revenues of $3.76bn.

After almost four decades, Dixon handed the CEO reins to Christian Schmitz in 2026, who previously joined as chief transformation officer. He will continue to advise Schmitz in an executive chairman role, where his read on the future of work will no doubt prove valuable.