WeWork, the New York-based co-working company, designed for freelancers, entrepreneurs and startups, is expanding its Chicago footprint by placing its Midwest headquarters in the Windy City.
The company, which currently has six locations in Chicago, has designated its Kinzie location in River North as the new headquarters, where more than a dozen WeWork employees began working out of on Monday, said Megan Dodds, the director of community for the Midwest at WeWork.
Employees at the new headquarters are in leadership roles across the company’s marketing, public relations and sales departments, and the majority of them were hired from Chicago. Dodds added that the company has plans to hire even more within the next year.
“Since we opened our first location a little over two years ago, we have been able to quickly grow our presence,” Dodds said. “We want to work out of the environment that our members work out of."
Besides the Kinzie location, WeWork has co-working spaces in River North, Fulton Market and the Loop. Globally, WeWork has more than 160 locations in 53 cities across 17 countries, and more than 150,000 members. The other two Midwest cities with WeWork locations are Detroit and Minneapolis.
“By offering our own team a community atmosphere where [they] can collaborate amongst each other, as well as with our members—we just think that that’s the type of environment where we do our best work," Dodds said.
