WeWork Hires Former EY Executive As New COO

The revamp of WeWork’s C-suite continues, with the company naming a new chief operating officer.

Most recently an EY executive, Shyam Gidumal will be reporting to WeWork's new CEO, Sandeep Mathrani, whose official first day at the company was on Tuesday. 

“Shyam has been an invaluable partner to me for many years during critical business inflection points, helping to focus operations and organizations including at Vornado, and repositioning companies for effective growth,” Mathrani said in a statement released Thursday.

“Having him as a partner in managing our business that spans 37 countries will be a significant boon to our operations and executive team. We look forward to continuing to add to the WeWork senior leadership team.”

Gidumal led retail and consumer products at EY and created the accounting firm's practice for dealing with shareholder activism, he said on his LinkedIn page. He left the firm last year as part of a "mandatory retirement." He was also previously a partner at The Boston Consulting Group, per WeWork's release.

The announcement comes just weeks after the embattled coworking company announced it had appointed Mathrani to the position of CEO. Former COO Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham had been serving as co-CEOs since September.

Following its disastrous attempt to go public last year, and the departure of its founder Adam Neumann, WeWork released a five-year strategic plan in November that focused on its core workspace business. The month before, it had agreed to a takeover from Japanese investment giant SoftBank Group. WeWork also expects to soon hire a new chief financial officer, Reuters reports.