Former Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy joins WeWork as interim CMO

WeWork has appointed former CEO and chairman of Publicis Groupe, Maurice Levy (pictured), to the role of interim chief marketing and communications officer, according to Bloomberg which quoted its sources. This is part of WeWork’s five-year turnaround plan which came after the company axed about 2,400 employees globally recently and halted its IPO plans in September.According to Bloomberg, WeWork witnessed a loss of more than US$1 million last quarter. Levy joined the Groupe in 1971 as IT director and was named CEO of Publicis Groupe in 1987, a role he helmed for 30 years. In June 2017, he was named chairman of the supervisory board when the Groupe named Arthur Sadoun to succeed him.In addition to Levy, Bloomberg said WeWork also named SoftBank Group’s Ralf Wenzel and Mike Bucy chief product officer and chief transformation officer respectively. The company also promoted Matt Jahansouz to chief people officer. Quoting executive chairman Marcelo Claure, Bloomberg reported that co-CEOs Sebastian Gunningham and Artie Minson will remain in their positions. Also, the company plans to bring on board a female board member in the future, as well as “expand geographically, but in a measured and profitable way”. Marketing has reached out to WeWork for comment.In August, the company filed for IPO and said in its IPO prospectus that it expects sales and marketing expenses associated with broker referral fees to grow. The company previously said it was increasingly targeting enterprises who sign membership agreements with longer-term commitments. However, the IPO plan was shortlived for WeWork scrapped it a month later.Separately with regards to the layoffs, The Straits Times reported that WeWork decline to comment on whether Singapore or Asia will be impacted by the lay offs, and if its planned expansion in Asia Pacific will be impacted.