The interview: Jaelle Ang, CEO & Founder, The Great Room

By Hamish McDougall

“My superpower is bringing great design to life,” says Jaelle Ang, founder and CEO of premium coworking space The Great Room. It may not compare to x-ray vision, but Ang’s design-led approach favouring considered space-making and value-creation over sheer scalability has proven almost heroically prescient in an industry famed (and shamed) for growth at any cost. And with the launch of the brand’s ninth space (and first shophouse), on South Bridge Road, with two more on the way, along with their acquisition in 2022 by Industrious, the scale is taking shape.

“We had stakeholders that kept us disciplined, and we were a bit slow in comparison to others who were growing no matter what,” says Ang. “In hindsight, it made us intentional and resilient – we achieved profitability in 2020, and have been since.”

“The industry is built on taking wholesale space, chopping it up into offices and selling it. But there’s very little value creation in that,” Ang continues. “What’s really big for us is partnerships with landlords. To set up for success, we share the good and bear the pain together, and we have long partnerships – we don’t do three or six years; South Bridge is a 15-year plan.”

What may seem obvious all these years on, was cause for criticism when coworking was largely a race to scale. The idea of genuinely investing in design, attracting a sophisticated clientele of like-minded ‘grown ups’ (versus startups), and charging a premium for this positioning – it must have sounded almost as absurd as striving after profitability.

How things have changed.

“The cost of funds is so high now, we’re done with the days of free money, so you really need to deliver returns. Against the old grow grow grow topline mentality, every business now has to have a focus on profitability,” says Ang. “Just this morning I heard someone say, ‘Oh, I’ve never worked in a profitable company before.’ It’s so reflective of this era.”

The design-led approach came naturally for Ang, who trained as an architect (“but was not the most talented architect in the room”). It dovetailed with her background in finance and real estate in catering to a largely untapped ‘grown up’ market, who unlike startups aren’t just looking for flexible deskspace.

“Being in a well-designed space, in a high-performing space where you meet like-minded people, is table stakes for some businesses and business owners. It’s not an indulgence, it’s what they need to fulfill their ambitions,” says Ang. “The high-value part of work is not behind a computer. It’s when I meet people, my team, casual collisions, intentional collisions – all of that stuff, and we want to do that really really well.”

Ang’s coworking spaces really do take on the multi-faceted nature of ‘the great room’ itself – a space for business but also pleasure, for entertaining but also contemplation. A space that should impress, but also welcome. This comes through in the handsomely furnished foyer of South Bridge, with its deep woods and leathers playing off the charming Peranakan details of the heritage shophouse that was once home to legendary TCM merchants Eu Yan Sang. Shared desks, meeting and board rooms, and private offices take out the levels above, while on the top floor, a cafe-slash-restaurant and light-filled workspace turns into a cocktail lounge by night and spills out onto the rooftop terrace.

In another prescient turn, the vision of the great room caters precisely to the changed requirements of the post-Covid office.

“As part of Industrious, with its global platform, we get to be at the front line of seeing how things are changing in different regions,” says Ang.

“In Asia, we’ve gone into a permanent hybrid work. For three days I’m going to dress up and do high-impact meetings, and then I’m going to be an introvert and just bang out work for the other two days.”

“Whereas in the US, we’re seeing more resistance to going back to the office. And Europe is somewhere in between,” she continues. “Mixed-use developments – creating a space and destination where people can do different things – has become a lot more attractive. If you look at London, Canary Wharf is really quiet. But the offices in Soho have been very vibrant because there’s a social aspect and you can mix it up.

“In all the spaces where we are, we want to make sure there’s that work-lifestyle continuum of activities from the first cappuccino to the last nightcap. Which is what happens here at South Bridge. This is the first location that we’ve been able to articulate that fully.”

With six spaces now in Singapore and two in Hong Kong, as well as one in Bangkok (and another on the way), and Sydney on the horizon, Ang is looking to expand the business’s footprint to match that of her clients – wherever they need not just deskspace for a day but board rooms, entertaining spaces, coffee, cocktails… in short, a great room.

“Everyone who travels to work in Bangkok tries to add a weekend before or after. You never see that in Jakarta or KL. It’s human – it’s a great place to be,” says Ang. It’s an intuition that chimes not only with the ‘grown-up’ business owners but also with the talent they’re trying to attract.

“The official party line is that The Great Room will go wherever our customers want to be – which tends to be financial hubs,” says Ang. “But in truth, it’s a very human thing, you want to be in the cities where you can work and play. It’s where your team wants to travel to, it’s where your customers want to go. There’s a certain density and velocity that we look for.”

What they’re really looking for is their people.

“It’s almost a psyche of people that we’re trying to attract: they’re ‘grown ups’, they want it all, they’re ambitious. They want to run high-performing businesses,” says Ang. “The Great Room attracts a lot of high-value industries like finance, tech, and professional services. But we also have non-profits and creatives. We see people pushing boundaries in different industries, and we’re learning with them.”

You get the feeling that at the heart of the business, Ang is catering to herself, building spaces that empower her to run a high-performance business, surrounding herself with talent and ‘grown ups’ and professional networks, design and culture, coffee and cocktails, with a work-play space in Bangkok and Sydney on the side, and perhaps Tokyo and Seoul in the near future – in the knowledge that her like-minded clients all want the same things.

Because we do, don’t we?

“I want everything possible to give me an edge,” says Ang. “And that’s how we design the space.”

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