Australian co-working company sees untapped potential in NZ
Friday, 17 July 2026
When Australian flexible workspace provider Jessie Glew realised there was room for more co-working offices in the New Zealand market she jumped at the chance to expand her business across the Tasman.
Glew is chief executive of WOTSO, an ASX-listed company that runs a flexible office space business, and owns and manages an aligned property portfolio of 18 commercial buildings valued at more than A$300 million.
New Zealand is not short of co-working spaces, with 213 around the country, according to sharedspace.co.nz’s latest annual report on the sector.
But Glew told The Post she saw good commercial prospects in New Zealand.
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In particular, there was the opportunity to deliver the sort of local community-driven co-working spaces that her company liked doing, she said.
“We love to set up in appropriate areas that give people the chance to work locally, and contribute to the building of sustainable local communities. There’s a trend towards co-working spaces effectively being retail shops on the high street.”
Workspaces that are 500m² to 1200m² spaces are also easier operationally.
WOTSO entered the New Zealand market four years ago when it bought a commercial property in Auckland’s Takapuna.
Since then it has open two more in Auckland and one in Whangārei, and last month it acquired a Wellington property for its first office in the capital, which will open in a couple of months.
The Whangārei space was an example of the demand for what WOTSO offers, Glew said.
“We opened the doors, and the space was full within a couple of months, so we've expanded our offering. It was only 700m², and we've expanded into the car park with these awesome portable pop-up-like containers, and people are grabbing them too.”
Glew’s interest in New Zealand was not just professional, she said. Her parents are from New Zealand, and her father, Seph Glew, worked in commercial property and was a director of Chase Corporation in the 1980s before heading to the US and then Australia where he founded WOTSO in 2014.
While Glew grew up in Australia, she has family in New Zealand, and has always been interested in its commercial property market.
“We've gone into Singapore and into Malaysia, and I would never do that again, because we don't know or understand those markets, and don't know how to transact with the local trades,” she said.
“Whereas in New Zealand we do understand how business functions, how to engage with trades, and how the business community works. For me, it feels good in the heart to come to New Zealand, and to be growing the business here.”
WOTSO was Australia’s first listed flexible property company, and has been expanding its network rapidly in recent years.
Its 42 flexible working spaces in Australia and five in New Zealand put 8500 desks under its management across nearly 57,000m² of co-working space, with 25,000m² of that space in buildings it owns.
Glew said demand for co-working spaces had accelerated dramatically off the back of Covid and the normalisation of remote working.
Over the past year, there had also been a significant increase in landlords partnering with them as a co-working space provider to deliver spaces by contributing capital to fit-outs, she said.
“In last year’s annual report we expected to expand by four to six locations over the year, and we've expanded to 10 locations since July of last year. That’s off the back of landlords partnering with us.
“We'd love to expand to have 30 to 40 locations in New Zealand as well..”
She was confident the sector would continue to grow as economic challenges prompted businesses to reassess their office space needs, and as they realised the co-working space options available.