With a global portfolio of products and services including offices to rent, co-working locations, boardrooms, and business lounges, Regus is well positioned for the rise of more flexible workplace arrangements. For over 20 years, it has been developing its network of locations around the world, finding new and innovative ways to better meet the needs of its corporate customers.
Regus was started in Belgium by entrepreneur Mark Dixon and today has presence in most parts of the world.
John Henderson is the CEO of the company’s Australian and New Zealand operations, a role he was appointed to last year after being the CFO of the Asia–Pacific since 2001. The CEO Magazine spoke to John about how he got to where he is today, what he sees as the key opportunities for the region, and the importance of partnerships.
The CEO Magazine: Tell us a little bit about your professional background leading up to your current role with Regus.
John: I am a chartered accountant, qualified in South Africa. I was tossing up between studying law or finance, but I thought the finance qualification gave me a lot more flexibility in terms of where I could work and what I could do. I felt it was a good starting point and a good grounding.
I began my career with an accounting firm, before moving to the UK and working in various audit and compliance roles. In the early 2000s, I joined Regus.
It was a business that was expanding and growing aggressively, and it sounded like a very exciting place to work. It was about to go public so it needed its compliance aspects covered off, so I was employed to start the ball rolling on that. I took a pragmatic and commercial approach, deciding that we should outsource what we could in order to get scale without having to build a massive team internally. Very quickly after that, I moved up to be CFO of the Asia-Pacific business.