(Bloomberg)—WeWork Cos. is adding a woman to its all-male board of directors as it seeks to burnish its image before becoming a public company.
The New York-based office-rental startup, which could begin a roadshow for its initial public offering as early as next week, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, will add Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei to its board, according to a filing made public Wednesday. The company said that within a year of its IPO, it aims to add an additional director, “with a commitment to increasing the board’s gender and ethnic diversity.”
Frei previously was senior vice president at Uber Technologies Inc., where she served on the management committee that ran the company as it searched for a new chief executive officer.
WeWork also disclosed in the filing that CEO Adam Neumann returned $5.9 million worth of partnership interests initially granted to him as compensation for trademarks used in the company’s rebranding.
To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Clark in New York at [email protected].
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Molly Schuetz, Giles Turner
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