WeWork parent We Co. did the right thing to add a woman to its board of directors, but the workspace-sharing company still suffers severe corporate governance issues. That’s according to IPO Edge Editor-in-Chief John Jannarone, who spoke to Cheddar TV about the new director named in the latest update to We Co.’s prospectus. A quick search on Sentieo of recent S-1 filings from unicorns such as Uber, Lyft, Peloton, and Pinterest shows they all had females on their boards. Additionally, nearly half of the Fortune 100 companies have at least 40% board representation from directors who aren’t white males, according to a recent study highlighted by CorpGov.
Unfortunately, WeWork is fraught with related-party transactions and has gone as far to say it “may elect not to comply with certain corporate governance standards, such as the requirement that our board of directors have a compensation committee and nominating and corporate governance committee composed entirely of independent directors.” Additionally, CEO Adam Neumann has voting control of the company, meaning minority shareholders are effectively at his whim.
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