- Office-sharing giant WeWork announced it has named Sandeep Mathrani as the newly appointed CEO of the company
WeWork — the office-sharing startup backed by Softbank — announced it has named real estate expert Sandeep Mathrani as the newly appointed CEO of the company. Mathrani will officially assume the role on February 18, 2020.
Mathrani will report to WeWork executive chairman Marcelo Claure. And Mathrani is succeeding WeWork co-CEOs Sebastian Gunningham and Artie Minson. Gunningham and Minson are going to remain at WeWork during a transition period.
“I am honored to be joining WeWork at this pivotal time in its history. The Company has redefined how people and companies approach work with an innovative platform, exceptionally talented team and significant potential if we stick to our shared values and maintain our members-first focus. I am grateful for the confidence Marcelo and the Board have placed in me and look forward to partnering with Marcelo and the very talented employees at WeWork,” said Mathrani.
According to Reuters’ sources, WeWork’s CEO search was handled by the company board of directors without working with an external executive search firm. And only a couple of search firms were considered.
Mathrani is the former CEO of Brookfield Properties’ retail group. And he also served as the CEO of General Growth Properties for nearly 8 years. And Mathrani was the executive vice president of Vornado Realty Trust for 8 years and also the Forest City Ratner Companies for 8 years.
WeWork started searching for a new CEO in November after WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann stepped down. WeWork also postponed its IPO and saw a steep decline in valuation to under $8 billion. WeWork was valued as high as $47 billion at one point.
“Over the past 100 days since I joined WeWork, we have made tremendous progress strengthening the business. As an important first step, we have recapitalized the business and have a plan that will provide us access to in excess of $2.5 billion in liquidity to execute our growth plans. With a strong liquidity position in place, we have also established a five-year, growth-led transformation plan that we believe will position WeWork to achieve profitability on an adjusted EBITDA basis by 2021 and positive free cash flow in 2022. We continue to make important changes to implement a strong management team that better enables the company to execute,” explained Claure.
