WeWork’s Profitability Turn After CEO John Santora’s RTO Shift

By Amara Osei

WeWork reached a peak valuation of $47 billion, had 850 locations in 39 countries and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023, according to Kimanzi Constable, founder of Ubora Advisory.

Constable describes WeWork’s co-working as a social-media flex during the company’s glory days. He links the collapse to rapid growth and poor leadership. The newly restructured company emerged from bankruptcy in 2024, when John Santora became CEO.

Santora previously served as chief operating officer at Cushman & Wakefield. Under his leadership, WeWork returned to profitability, Constable reports. He attributes part of the recovery to intentional workplace-culture strategies, as discussed in Business Insider’s interview with the CEO.

What changed under John Santora?

Santora told Business Insider that a new flexible RTO policy helped shift WeWork’s culture. He calls it a “purposeful presence” model, which brings employees back to the office for training sessions, creative projects and team-building activities.

The model gives WeWork’s leaders the compliance and collaboration they need while respecting team autonomy, according to Constable. Santora does not measure performance by when employees arrive or leave; he looks for completed work and happy clients. In his account, office presence supports defined activities rather than serving as an end in itself.

Santora’s standard is explicit. He said: “I don’t look at what time my team leaves or what time they come in as long as they’re getting their work done and they’re keeping clients happy.”

How does “purposeful presence” work?

Constable’s account separates four elements from Santora’s model:

• Purpose: Santora uses the RTO policy to bring employees into the office for training sessions, creative projects and team-building activities.
• Control: Constable says the model gives leaders needed compliance and collaboration while preserving team autonomy.
• Measurement: Santora’s test is whether employees complete their work and keep clients happy, not when they arrive or leave.
• Effect: Constable says an environment where employees do not feel caged improves engagement and creates intrapreneurship.

In Constable’s account, that sequence treats flexibility as a management design choice, not a lack of standards. Santora still expects completed work and client satisfaction. The policy asks leaders to secure compliance and collaboration without setting employees’ arrival and departure times.

Constable presents workplace culture as an operating lever rather than a separate human-resources theme. He says balancing the company’s needs with the team’s wants optimizes human capital. His case study links that balance to engagement and intrapreneurship.

What should founders take from the model?

For founders, Constable’s instruction is direct: “Human capital is your company’s greatest asset. Leverage it efficiently.” The recommendation follows his case study: balance the company’s needs with the team’s wants.

Constable’s broader claim is that team-building strategies can optimize culture, foster innovation and increase profitability. The recommendation is operational rather than cultural in isolation. In practice, office time supports specific group activities, while completed work and client satisfaction remain the standard.

That operating logic gives founders a practical test for any flexible workplace policy: office time should have a named purpose, leaders should secure compliance and collaboration, and teams should retain schedule autonomy. Santora’s own measure remains simple: the work must get done and clients must remain happy. Constable says those conditions support engagement and intrapreneurship.

For WeWork, the next operating results will show whether flexible office time can sustain completed work, client satisfaction and the engagement that Constable links to profitability.