WeWork's co-CEOs, Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham, have had a wild few weeks.
And with a SoftBank bailout deal announced on Tuesday night, they're now working with a new board chairman, and more changes are in store — WeWork said its board will add more members and assume the voting control that once belonged to co-founder Adam Neumann.
Ahead of WeWork's announcement about the deal, Axios had reported that the co-CEOs would resign, and that SoftBank would name its COO, Marcelo Claure, as WeWork's executive chairman and then launch a CEO search process. WeWork's board had already agreed to severance packages for Minson and Gunningham if they leave as part of the SoftBank negotiations, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
While Claure has indeed been named executive chairman, Minson and Gunningham are still in place and sent an email to the entire company on Wednesday ahead of an all-hands meeting led by Claure. In it, they wrote:
"As your co-CEOs, we are committed to working with Marcelo and SoftBank to position our company for long-term success," the email said.
As the former CEO of Sprint, Claure was known for helping restructure leadership teams and clean up companies.
In Claure's own email to the company on Wednesday, he thanked both CEOs for "stepping up" but also said the company still needs to refocus.
"To be candid, what we are lacking is a focus on our core business: WeWork, along with accountability, and seamless execution," he wrote.
Here's the email from the CEOs in full.
Team,
We know that the last several weeks have felt like we couldn't catch a break. Despite this, you've continued to stay true to our mission of serving our members and maintaining our focus on community.
As you know, late last night New York time, WeWork and SoftBank announced an agreement under which SoftBank commits to provide significant funding to the company. This includes a debt and equity financing package to fully fund our business plan with the objective of profitability and free cash flow.
With this agreement, Marcelo Claure, SoftBank's COO, has been elected Executive Chairman of the WeWork Board of Directors. In this new role, he will help WeWork realize its vision for the benefit of our employees, members, landlords and communities worldwide. We know you heard from him over email but let us echo the sentiment that he and SoftBank believe in our mission, our team and our future. And as your co-CEOs, we are committed to working with Marcelo and SoftBank to position our company for long-term success.
While we understand that you have questions about this announcement, we ask that you bear with us as we won't have all the answers today. Nevertheless, you can reach us directly at (email addresses) if you want to share your thoughts on this news.
And here's the note on Wednesday from WeWork cofounder and Chief Culture Officer Miguel McKelvey, who has remained at the company but whose role remains vague.
A word from Miguel ...
Artie and Sebastian, along with many other members of our team, have worked tirelessly to reach this agreement and secure the future of WeWork for all of us, and I thank them for all of their hard work. This new funding will be instrumental to WeWork's future.
While this may mark the start of a new chapter for WeWork, I know that our brand and our people will remain central to our success moving forward.
All the best, Miguel
