Jesse Hayes. Founder of Eclat Coworking Melbourne. Forme Director. Creator. Designer. Systems Architect

Creating brands, environments, systems and companies that elevate how people live, work and connect. Melbourne, Australia.

Over the past thirteen years I conceived and built ECLAT coworking, Melbourne's first hospitality-infused luxury serviced office brand; from just a single word trademarked and acquired in 2011; to the award-winning ECLAT Hawthorn East, now expanding across multiple sites in the Melbourne CBD. I'm proud to have authored the business by leading a diverse team of brilliant consultants; co-designing across brand identity, creative direction, enterprise technology, ECLAT App, digital ecosystems, interior design by FORME, property strategy and the delivery of ECLAT Hawthorn East.

One founding principle runs through it all: environments we inhabit should elevate the way we live, work and connect. Not as spectacle, as a standard. This website is the documented record of my work and authorship: my portfolio, professional resume and work output across design, systems, technology, brand, development & governance.

Jesse Hayes. Founder of Eclat Coworking Melbourne. Forme Director. Creator. Designer. Systems Architect

Creating brands, environments, systems and companies that elevate how people live, work and connect. Melbourne, Australia.

Over the past thirteen years I conceived and built ECLAT coworking, Melbourne's first hospitality-infused luxury serviced office brand; from just a single word trademarked and acquired in 2011; to the award-winning ECLAT Hawthorn East, now expanding across multiple sites in the Melbourne CBD. I'm proud to have authored the business by leading a diverse team of brilliant consultants; codesigning across brand identity, creative direction, enterprise technology, the ECLAT App and digital ecosystem, interior design by FORME, property strategy and delivery of the ECLAT Hawthorn East fit out.

One founding principle runs through it all: environments we inhabit should elevate the way we live, work and connect. Not as spectacle, as a standard. This website is a documented record of my work & authorship: my portfolio and professional resume across design, systems, technology, brand, development & governance.

WHAT I DO
& HOW I DO IT

Shaped by curiosity, systems thinking and the conviction that imagination is only as valuable as the discipline needed to make dreams reality. Meaningful outcomes as the product of purpose, process and genuine care, where considered decisions at every stage influence the whole. Detail, efficiency and experience compound as ideas are responsibly developed and resolved with intent and understood in context of the bigger picture rather than in isolation.

Everything I do begins with some simple questions: why should this exist, why does it matter, and why should it be done well? This is a compass, for every decision, action and investment of effort. I aspire to create things that genuinely benefit people, and to develop assets that generate opportunity, excitement and lasting value. The sections that follow reflect the core disciplines, capabilities and body of work that have shaped my career.

Before creating ECLAT I invested a decade across Microsoft Game Studios, Nintendo of America and Rockstar Games, live event production in Las Vegas, and four years in the Australian Army. Digital worldbuilding and development, quality assurance, hospitality orchestration and military service; exposure to a diverse array of industries and challenges to build a future on.
Read More
ECLAT, Melbourne's premier hospitality-infused luxury coworking brand, was founded in 2013. I acquired the eclat.com domain in 2011 while serving in the Australian Army, then opened ECLAT CREATIVE as a sole trader in Williamstown. I spent the next decade pushing the dream up the entrepreneurial hill, developing the proposition that became ECLAT Hawthorn East. Coworking redefined, built on branded hospitality, elevated interior design and seamless technology. The founding catalyst was a single phrase: "to be brilliant."

Explore the full story of Eclat, from its original concept through to the development of its brand, workplaces and operating model.
Read More
As Creative Director of ECLAT coworking Melbourne, I authored, directed and protected the ECLAT brand from first word and first principals. Identity, narrative, digital, campaign, soul, intent and experience. Creating the design system and the substance of ECLAT and its family of brands: Bureau, Parlor, Galerie, Noted and FORME. One language across every expression: restrained luxury, honest materiality and authentic human experience, realised in full at ECLAT Hawthorn East.
Read More
The ECLAT operating logic was enabled by Nexudus, the CRM platform behind ECLAT coworking Melbourne. On this initial foundation, my creative and digital partners and I developed a bespoke deployment of branded apps and systems to enable the company to scale and achieve seamless hospitality operations. The result was a digital experience as a consistent branded touchpoint, and defined the working model of the business itself, from first enquiry to each cup of coffee.
Read More
As CTO of ECLAT, I led the architecture and technology deployment and skilled consultants that existed behind the Melbourne workspace: enterprise networking, VLANs and redundancy, server and cloud environments, Salto access control, CCTV, AV integration and device fleets, infrastructure engineered so members never have to notice it, reliable, powerful, futureproofed and flexible. In luxury coworking, when technology fails, the experience fails with it.
Read More
My incredible digital partners and I developed the innovative ECLAT digital ecosystem, a bespoke suite of technologies, including the award-winning ECLAT App, ECLAT Dashboard, ECLAT Order API and web platforms, recognised by many Australian and International design awards, including the Good Design Awards, Better Future Melbourne and the World Design Awards. Digital products designed as native extensions of the ECLAT brand, not bolted-on software.
Read More
Leading the interior design of ECLAT was a pursuit to create a unique and identifiable design language, ECLAT Hawthorn East is 1,970 sqm of soft luxury, built on restraint, honest materiality and consideration rather than excess. Through FORME DESIGN, the furniture and design studio co-founded with Mark Miller, every desk, surface and joinery detail was authored for ECLAT, recognized at the Australian Interior Design Awards, ADR IDEA Awards, Melbourne Design Awards, Good Design Awards & The Local Project.
Read More
Between 2016 and 2018 I led and directed the Creative Quarter proposal, an urban planning proposition for the Footscray CBD, prepared and presented in consultation with Maribyrnong City Council. It championed a new public auditorium, a contemporary library, a town square and seamlessly integrated commerce: a living, breathing hive of activity at Footscray's civic heart. A decade on, the same land, the same structures and the same language would come to define the council's Creative West precinct.
Read More
From market research and strategic site identification to fully resolved and branded industry leading EOI proposals, financial feasibility, risk assessment and fit out delivery. I led the commercial property strategy that brought ECLAT to Hawthorn East, in parallel to the interior, spatial, creative, technological and operational elements of the business. My list of authored EOI submissions include Footscray, Hawthorn East, South Melbourne, Prahran, Cremorne, as well as multiple ECLAT Melbourne CBD locations in the vicinity of Bourke and Collins Street.
Read More
My project-management scope encompassed the delivery of ECLAT Hawthorn East, end to end: program, consultant appointments, and leadership across every deliverable. Within the business I was the sole point of leadership and delivery across creative, design, IT and digital. I'm proud of defending quality and first principals from persistent challenges, and held the standard across every element, and each discipline that brought ECLAT together as one brilliant endeavour.
Read More
Holding office as the founding Director of ECLAT since incorporating my sole trading business ECLAT Creative. I have carried governance as a devout responsibility. Seeking to uphold lawful behavior, legal & regulatory compliance, accountability, transparency, stewardship, reducing risk and championing logical, market reactive long-term planning, in service of one ambition: to build a proud, ethical institution that deserves its success whilst protecting the principals that the brand I created represents.

I was removed from office as a director of Eclat Corporation & Eclat IP on Friday 4th September 2026.
Read More

UPCOMING ENDEAVOURS & BRILLIANT PARTNERSHIPS

PIETRANERA

While the Visconti lineage grinds down the land and its people, a merchant's son climbs a ridge above an alpine corridor and begins to build. To honor his father's vision, he must outmaneuver bishops, lords, rivals, love, hope, betrayal & conflict, waging everything and everyone on the one thing that does not move. The black stone, of Pietranera.

AMIDST

A new format of escape, rewriting and disrupting an industry, and how we access memorable experiences & iconic destinations. Somewhere out there in the beautiful landscapes, in the wilderness, the land itself is incubating change. Places where people come together, work together, and build together. Where will you find yourself Amidst?

DONE TALKING

A not-for-profit advocacy platform for workplace rights: standing with people through workplace injury, unfair treatment, bullying and abuse. Calling for long overdue reforms to systems of safety, prevention, justice, accountability and compensation. Lobbying for urgent and impactful change. Those suffering are Done Talking.