Overview
The traditional office lease model—long-term, inflexible, impersonal—is collapsing under its own weight. Joff Sharpe saw it coming. As a former Special Forces officer turned corporate transformation leader, Joff brought a unique kind of urgency and imagination to British Land. His mission? Help a legacy real estate institution evolve from passive rent collector to active service provider.
In this episode of The Flexible Office Economy, host Mark Gilbreath speaks with Joff about the conception and launch of Storey, British Land’s in-house flex office brand. From skeptical boardrooms to skunkworks pilots, Joff shares how he and his team introduced flexibility, customer intimacy, and operational discipline into a world that had long favored 10-year leases over 10-minute experiences.
It’s part origin story, part battle log—and all about what it takes to shift a $1B asset strategy from “landlord” to “partner.”
Episode Highlights
- Why Storey was born: not from trend-chasing, but from customer empathy
- The untapped segment: “the forgotten middle” of 20–70 person companies
- Why British Land resisted outsourcing—and chose to own the customer relationship
- How Storey achieved a 30–40% rent premium while offering flexibility
- The real economics of short-term leases, occupancy risk, and productized space
- What landlords must learn from HR: design from the employee outward
- How COVID acted as an accelerant—not a disruptor—to pre-existing trends
- Why the core-plus-flex-plus-home model is the new baseline
Why Listen
Joff Sharpe doesn’t just talk about transformation—he’s led it inside one of the UK’s largest property companies. This episode gives you an honest, inside look at the tensions, breakthroughs, and tradeoffs required to evolve a portfolio, a brand, and a business model for the flexible future.
If you're a landlord, operator, or institutional investor asking:
“How do I stay relevant in a post-lease world?”—this is your blueprint.
