Thursday 4 June & Friday 5 June
The agenda is fluid and we reserve the right to adapt programming. Speakers are added as they are confirmed.
Event Schedule
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Arrival
Info
Arrive early and connect. This isn't a queue-for-coffee-and-check-your-phone registration. It's an hour of facilitated networking designed to break the ice before the day begins. Coffee, conversation and the chance to meet the people you'll be learning alongside all day.
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Welcome to GCUC UK
Info
Join Emilie Lashmar, GCUC UK Director and Producer, and James Panepinto, Group Ancillary Revenue Manager at Clockwise and UK chair of Future Leaders of Coworking, as they open GCUC UK Manchester with an energising welcome.
Speakers
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The Occupier’s Brief
Presentation
Most conversations in this industry happen between operators. This one starts with the data and ends on the other side of the deal.
Paddy Kennedy revisits his dissertation on regional flex, tracks where the market has actually gone since, and shares what Colliers are seeing now across the UK and globally. He and Phoebe Reilly are then joined by Joe Manning, MD of Invest Manchester, who briefs incoming businesses on the city, and Jo Ahmed, Practice Senior Partner at Deloitte, who brings first-hand experience of one of the UK's biggest flex deals.
Speakers
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Beyond the RSVP
Panel
The coworking industry talks about community constantly. It measures it rarely. This session makes the commercial case for changing that, and hears from operators and specialists who are already doing the work to prove what belonging is actually worth.
Speakers
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Mid Morning Break
Info
Time to refuel, revisit the exhibition space and continue the conversations started in the morning sessions.
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The Regional Opportunity + The Data Gap
Panel
The strongest case for regional flex is being made by the operators already doing it. This session brings together people who've built and scaled coworking businesses outside London for an honest conversation about what the economics actually look like. WIN, the operator-led data collective, will share what the numbers say and make the case for why more regional voices need to be contributing to them. Part panel, part call to action.
Speakers
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Lunch
Info
A proper lunch break. Eat, network, explore the exhibition and recharge before the afternoon workshops.
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Workshops and Roundtables
Workshop
The best conversations at GCUC UK don't always happen on stage. These sessions go deeper, with smaller groups, honest dialogue, and the kind of peer-to-peer exchange you won't find anywhere else. Come with your questions, your challenges, and your shortcuts. Leave with something you can actually use.
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Workshop 1: The OpenOps Project: What Does It Actually Cost?
Hosted by: Ben Newton, Operations Director, Patch
The hotel industry has had shared cost benchmarking for 40 years. Coworking has nothing. Patch put their real P&L data into the open and built a free tool for operators to compare supplier costs on a like-for-like basis. In this roundtable, Ben shares the numbers, runs a quick exercise to test your assumptions, and opens the floor to help design the framework. If you have ever wondered whether you are overpaying for cleaning, utilities, or internet, and had nobody to ask, this session is for you.
Workshop 2: Your Pipeline Is Lying to You
Hosted by: Keke Patissier, CEO and Co-Founder and Oliver Easton-Hughes, Chief Strategy Officer, Koho
Most operators are confidently wrong about where their revenue is. The pipeline looks healthy and the dashboards say what you want them to say, but somewhere in your data there are accounts that aren't being charged, renewals closing later than they should, and value hiding in places nobody's thinking to look.
In this hands-on session, you'll work in teams to interrogate a live operator dataset. Same data. Different questions. Different answers. You'll leave with a sharper eye for where revenue hides in your own operation — and a clearer sense of what your dashboards aren't telling you. The winning team walks away with prizes — and one of them, drawn at random, takes home a MacBook Neo. Laptops and dataset provided. Bring a team.
Workshop 3: The Inclusive Space
Hosted by: Stacey Sheppard, Founder, The Tribe Coworking and Felicia Fai, Associate Professor, University of Bath School of Management
Accessibility and inclusivity get mentioned in every coworking pitch deck. Specifics are rarer. In this roundtable, Stacey and Felicia bring practitioner and academic perspectives, work through real case examples in small groups, and surface what's actually working. You'll leave with actions to commit to. If "inclusive space" lives on your website but not yet in your operations, this session is for you.
Speakers
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Early Afternoon Break
Info
A short break between workshops and the afternoon main stage sessions.
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The Generous Operator
Panel
The premise is simple: you have to earn the right to be generous. This session is about the commercial work that creates the headroom for the gestures that matter, whether that's for your members, your team, or your wider community. Three speakers from across flex, property, and living bring different angles to the same question: what does it look like when financial rigour and genuine hospitality stop being in tension?
Speakers
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The Centralised Advantage | AI That Works Because Your Data Does
Fireside Chat
Chris Cole and Paul Rowe from Yardi unpack why AI tools only deliver for flex operators when the data behind them is centralised and clean. A practical session on what 'AI-ready' actually means in day-to-day operations, and the disconnected systems quietly holding teams back.
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Late Afternoon Break
Info
A short pause before the closing fireside chat.
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Building Manchester: Fireside
Fireside Chat
Michael Ingall has spent decades reshaping Manchester's built environment. As the force behind Allied London, St John's, Factory International and Department, he's built one of the UK's most ambitious regeneration stories. This fireside chat goes beyond bricks and mortar into the philosophy of placemaking: why culture matters more than square footage and what Manchester's trajectory tells us about the future of regional cities.
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Drinks Reception
Info
The day doesn't end when the sessions do. Join us for drinks, conversation and the kind of connections that only happen when the formalities are over.
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GCUC UK After Party, hosted by technologywithin
Info
The best conversations rarely happen in the sessions. So when day one closes, we're heading up to The Dome, a glass-domed rooftop bar at the ABC Building, to keep them going.
Drinks, light bites, music and good company, with technologywithin hosting. Come for one, stay for the lot.
Session Sponsors
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