The “We” in WeWork now includes Sean Black, who joined Cushman & Wakefield just last year and has brokered deals for the co-working giant in the past.
As an executive vice president, Black will oversee WeWork’s expansion in the city as well as in Miami, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Boston. The collaborative workspace provider’s valuation recently jumped to $16 billion.
In 2013, Black, then with JLL, represented WeWork for a 16-year lease for more than 120,000 square feet at 222 Broadway.
“This is not a monster shift for me,” Black told Crain’s, which first reported the news.
Black, a former boxer, worked for JLL for six years and joined Cushman last July.
WeWork raised $430 million in its latest round of funding. The financing round was led by Beijing-based private-equity firm Hony Capital Ltd. and Legend Holdings, its parent company, Neumann said in a blog post last week. If WeWork were a publicly-traded company, the $16 billion valuation would make it the third-most-valuable publicly traded office landlord.
Co-founder Miguel McKelvey recently said the company plans to grow to 1,000 locations from the 52 it currently operates, according to Crain’s. It is in talks with Lend Lease, an Australian construction firm, to form a venture focused on leasing office and living spaces worldwide. In November, The Real Deal reported WeWork was actively searching for locations to set up shop in Shanghai. [Crain’s] — Dusica Sue Malesevic