In an effort to shed its once sought-after stance as a technology company, WeWork has enlisted real estate veteran Sandeep Mathrani as its new CEO.
Mathrani has been the CEO of Brookfield Properties’ retail group for the past 1.5 years, as well as vice chairman of Brookfield Properties. Before then, he was the CEO of General Growth Properties, one of the largest mall operators in the U.S., for eight years until Brookfield acquired the company in 2018.
Additionally, Mathrani was executive vice president at real estate company Vornado Realty Trust for eight years.
He will report to former T-Mobile CEO and SoftBank operating chief and Marcelo Claure, who serves as executive chairman of WeWork and is working to keep the company afloat.
“The size of the commitment that SoftBank has made to this company in the past and now is $18.5 billion,” said Claure at an all-hands meeting. “To put the things in context, that is bigger than the GDP of my country where I came from [Bolivia]. That’s a country where there’s 11 million people.”
Having Mathrani on board is a major pivot from WeWork’s cofounder and former CEO Adam Neumann, who was forced to step down after he put the company in a massive financial hole and led it to a failed IPO.
