Service Business of the Year 2013

Founders: James Layfield and Steve Pette
Year Started: 2011  
Website: www.centralworking.com

Central Working is a membership-based club designed to provide the space, systems and support entrepreneurs need to grow their businesses. It looks to help emerging UK start-ups and the capital’s Tech City by providing the ideal environment to “empower individuals to realise their potential”.

The club was borne out of Layfield and Pette’s frustration at the lack of facilities available to flexible workers and small businesses, and after spending much of their time working out of coffee shops, they decided to create something better. Seeking to provide more than desk space, the co-working company encourages collaboration between its members and looks to facilitate connections and networking between start-ups and small business operating within its sites.

Since its launch in 2011, Central Working now owns three key London spaces with sites in Bloomsbury, Shoreditch and Google Campus, and it has several other openings in the pipeline.

Judges comments:                                            

In a world of lean start-ups and people setting up a business with just a laptop and a mobile, Central Working has provided flexible bases in key locations for small businesses to share and grow together – and has grown impressively itself too!