Gabriela Hersham

Why organisations work with Gabriela Hersham

• Ten years of operating data on what actually draws people back into shared space, drawn from running Huckletree hubs across London, Manchester and Dublin rather than theory.
• A working view on curating communities by sector, including Web3, fintech, AI and govtech, tested inside the UK’s first Web3-themed co-working hub at Oxford Street.
• A concrete record of inclusive entrepreneurship practice through Fairer Funding Now and the Huckletree Alpha accelerator, running pro-bono for under-represented founders since 2017.
• A founder’s view on scaling a physical network to roughly 300,000 sq ft while holding cultural standards, useful for any leader reconciling real-estate spend with employee experience.
• Speaking experience that spans TEDx stages, industry podcasts and corporate conferences, with a style that senior audiences read as operator rather than consultant.

Biography highlights

• Founder and CEO of Huckletree, launched in 2014 and grown to eight hubs across London, Manchester and Dublin.
• Operates roughly 300,000 sq ft of curated workspace serving around 4,000 members across Web3, fintech, AI, govtech and sustainable innovation.
• Launched Huckletree Oxford Street, positioned as the UK’s first Web3 and metaverse-themed co-working hub.
• Founded Fairer Funding Now, a campaign for greater inclusivity in startup investment, and runs Huckletree Alpha, a pro-bono accelerator for under-represented founders since 2017.
• TEDx speaker on the Future of Work; named one of Tide Bank’s Top 20 female entrepreneurs to watch in 2020.
• Contributor bylines at The Next Web and Creative Review; interviewed by HuffPost Trailblazing Women, Culture Trip and the Propertyshe podcast.

Biography

Huckletree opened its first space in Clerkenwell in 2014 after Gabriela Hersham returned to London convinced the city was missing the community model she had seen take hold in New York. Ten years on, the business runs eight hubs across London, Manchester and Dublin, about 300,000 sq ft of space, and a membership base of roughly 4,000 founders and operators.

What distinguishes the company from a generic flexible-office provider is the curation. Each hub is built around a sector thesis: Web3 and the metaverse at Oxford Street, fintech and AI elsewhere in the portfolio, with members recruited against that thesis rather than sold desks on a first-come basis. That choice turns the workspace into a distribution channel for deals, hires and partnerships, which is why corporate partners buy into specific hubs rather than generic square footage.

Inclusive entrepreneurship sits alongside the commercial model rather than running as a side project. Fairer Funding Now campaigns for change in how capital reaches under-represented founders. Huckletree Alpha, the pro-bono accelerator running since 2017, is the practical counterpart, giving cohort members space, mentoring and access without taking equity.

For corporate audiences the value is the operating detail behind those choices. A TEDx talk on the future of work, repeat podcast appearances on property and founder platforms, and contributor bylines at The Next Web and Creative Review have made Hersham a recognisable voice on what brings people back into shared space. The argument she makes to boards and HR leaders is concrete: offices only earn their cost when they are designed as communities with a specific purpose, and diversity in hiring and funding is part of how that purpose holds together.

Key speaking topics

• Future of work and the hybrid workplace
• Workplace design and community curation
• Women in entrepreneurship
• Inclusive funding and diverse founder pipelines
• Scaling a founder-led business
• Web3, fintech and emerging-sector ecosystems

Ideal for

• CHROs and people leaders rebuilding office strategy and employee experience
• Real-estate and workplace directors balancing cost with culture
• Corporate innovation and venture teams engaging with early-stage ecosystems
• Networks and events on women in business and diverse entrepreneurship

Audience outcomes

• A sharper read on why employees return to some offices and avoid others, grounded in operating data from a curated network.
• Concrete examples of how sector-themed workplace communities produce commercial value rather than just reduce cost.
• A practical view on embedding inclusive funding and hiring practices into the way a company runs, not as a separate programme.
• An operator’s perspective on scaling a physical and cultural network without losing what made it work in the first place.