Mark Dixon Steps Down as IWG CEO: What's Behind It

What did Mark Dixon announce?

Mark Dixon is stepping down as CEO of IWG and becoming the company's Executive Chairman. The new CEO will be Christian Schmitz, who until now served IWG as Chief Transformation Officer and, most recently, as Global Head of all Regions. The decision was made public on 16 June 2026; City AM and other trade media such as Property Week reported on the change at the top of the group the same day. As Executive Chairman, Dixon remains with the company as an adviser to the CEO.

Dixon founded the company in 1989 as Regus with a single location in Brussels and, by his own account, led it for almost 38 years. In his farewell message he emphasised that IWG has now grown to 6,000 locations worldwide, open and in planning. According to IWG's official statement and consistent trade reports, the business continues to develop in line with expectations.

The market reaction was muted. Following the announcement, the IWG share rose 1 percent to 184 pence according to City AM (16 June 2026). Since the start of the year, however, the share was down 18.8 percent at that point. IWG communicates the formal details of the personnel change via a mandatory notice to the London Stock Exchange.

Who is Mark Dixon and how big is IWG?

Mark Dixon is the founder of IWG, born in Essex, England, in 1959, and is regarded as one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in the UK. According to the Sunday Times Rich List, his fortune was estimated at around 1.44 billion pounds in 2021, and Forbes listed him in April 2025 at about 1.2 billion US dollars. He started in 1989 with a first Regus centre in Brussels and, over more than three decades, built it into the world's largest provider of flexible office space.

IWG has been listed on the London Stock Exchange for over a quarter of a century and today operates a global network under brands such as Regus, Spaces, HQ and Signature. According to the company, the network now comprises more than one million workstations in 121 countries. In 2025 alone, IWG signed 1,132 new location agreements worldwide and opened 782 centres according to konii.de (June 2026), by its own account the most successful financial year in the company's history.

The path there was not a straight line. In 2003, IWG had to place its US business under creditor protection (Chapter 11) and then restructure the business, according to City AM. In 2020, the share lost more than half its value after the coronavirus lockdowns, because hundreds of locations stood empty. The company then shifted its growth more towards smaller cities and locations outside city centres, to adapt to changed working habits.

The key milestones at a glance:

The bottom line: IWG is not a newcomer but a group that has grown over almost four decades, survived several crises and today leads the flex office market.

Who will be the new CEO of IWG?

The new CEO of IWG will be Christian Schmitz, who until now has accompanied the group as Chief Transformation Officer and, most recently, as Global Head of all Regions. Schmitz joined IWG in 2025, was previously a partner at McKinsey and a manager at the investment firm KKR, and spent six years as CEO of the workplace-services group Selecta. With the change, a manager whose role is closely tied to the strategic overhaul of the company moves to the top.

This overhaul is the core of IWG's current strategy. The group is shifting its weight from self-operated locations towards a capital-light franchise and management-partner model, often compared in the industry to hotel chains such as Hilton or Marriott. The fact that a transformation manager is now taking over the CEO post, while founder Dixon secures continuity as Executive Chairman, fits this line.

For observers of the German market this is relevant, because this very platform model explains why IWG has been acquiring so aggressively of late. Anyone who wants to understand how the group operates in Germany will find the analysis in our piece on the takeover of Design Offices by IWG.

Why is Mark Dixon stepping down now?

Mark Dixon is handing over the CEO post from a position of strength, not of crisis. IWG reported for 2025 what it describes as the best financial year in the company's history, and Dixon himself stated that the business continues to develop in line with expectations.

The figures support this reading. For the 2025 financial year, IWG reported system-wide revenue of 4.5 billion US dollars and adjusted EBITDA of 531 million US dollars according to its annual report (published on 3 March 2026). The trend towards hybrid and decentralised working is driving the business. According to the Evening Standard, Dixon spoke the previous year of the fastest growth in the company's history.

An orderly transition from founder-CEO to Executive Chairman is, in this situation, a classic step in succession planning. Dixon remains involved through the chairman role, while operational leadership goes to a manager who knows the ongoing platform overhaul. For a listed company, this is a signal of continuity rather than rupture.

What does the change mean for the German flex office market?

For the German market, the leadership change mainly means one thing: the expansion and consolidation strategy already under way is likely to continue. IWG is currently expanding massively in Germany. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, the group signed 382 new locations worldwide according to konii.de (June 2026), 66 of them in Germany.

The biggest lever remains the takeover of Design Offices. With the acquisition, around 50 locations in 15 German cities and roughly 260,000 square metres of premium space came into IWG's portfolio, with Design Offices posting annual revenue of 142 million euros (2024). With that, IWG closes the gap in the segment of large corporate clients, which the group could previously serve only to a limited extent in Germany.

It did not stop at one acquisition. In May 2026, IWG additionally took over the German spaces of the London operator Fora with five locations and filed the move with the Federal Cartel Office, as the Immobilien Zeitung reported. Within just a few months, the group has thus picked up two established providers from the German premium segment, a clear sign of the ongoing consolidation in the German market.

A change of leadership at the top of the group changes little about this market logic in the short term, because Dixon remains as Executive Chairman and Schmitz comes from the existing transformation course. What will be decisive in the medium term is whether the Design Offices brand remains independent or is integrated into the IWG brands Regus and Spaces. That question is still open and, for tenants, the practically most important point. The background is in our detailed market analysis of the IWG-Design Offices takeover.

What does this mean for companies looking for an office now?

Anyone currently looking for a flex office or a coworking spot encounters a market that is more professional, but also more concentrated than it was just a few years ago. With the takeovers of Design Offices and Fora and the continued expansion, a growing share of the German premium supply is bundling with a single, very well-capitalised provider.

In concrete terms, for the office search this means: more locations under one corporate roof increase availability, but can make comparison harder when several brands belong to the same group. Anyone who really wants to compare terms, lease periods and spaces should know which providers and brands belong together. We provide an initial orientation on when a classic office and when a flex office pays off in our guide Rent an office or flex office?.

This is exactly where independent advice comes in. The more a market consolidates, the greater the value of a neutral view across all providers, instead of relying on the portfolio of a single group. You can find an overview of available spaces in the major markets, for example, via our location maps for Frankfurt and Munich.

Conclusion

Mark Dixon is stepping down as IWG CEO after almost four decades and moving into the role of Executive Chairman; the new CEO will be Christian Schmitz. The change comes from a position of strength, in the middle of a record run and right after the largest acquisitions in recent German flex office history.

For companies looking for an office, it is less the personnel change that matters than the market movement behind it: the German flex office market continues to consolidate, and with it grows the need for independent guidance. We are following the further development and putting into context what it concretely means for tenants.