Rebekah Victoria Neumann (née Paltrow; born February 26, 1978) is an American businesswoman. Until September 22, 2019, she served as chief brand and impact officer at WeWork, a company founded by her husband, Adam Neumann, and oversaw its education program WeGrow.[1][2][3][4]
Early life and education
Neumann, the daughter of Evelyn and Bob Paltrow, grew up in Bedford, New York, and attended the Horace Mann School.[5] Her father had a direct mail business and spent a number of years in prison for tax evasion.[6]
After graduating from college, Neumann entered Salomon Smith Barney's Sales and Trading Program, now known as Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.[12] In the early 2010s, she acted and produced some short films using the screen name Rebekah Keith.[13]
In 2010, her husband, Adam Neumann, and Miguel McKelvey co-founded WeWork.[14] In 2019 Rebekah Neumann began calling herself a cofounder of WeWork.[6]
According to Vanity Fair at WeWork "she has been known to have people fired, such as a mechanic for WeWork’s Gulfstream jet, within minutes of meeting them because she didn’t like their energy."[6]
She founded WeGrow, a private school in Chelsea, in 2017.[15][16] In September 2019, after an attempt to take the company public revealed deepening financial issues, it was announced that Rebekah Neumann would step down as CEO of WeGrow and relinquish her role in The We Company.[17] Rebekah Neumann played a key role in the collapse of the IPO having contributed New Age language in the filing which as a result "read like a novel written by someone, who was 'shrooming", according to Scott Galloway.[6] In October 2019, it was announced that the WeGrow school would close at the end of the academic year.[18]
Since the collapse of WeWork and associated companies it has been discovered that Rebekah Neumann played a key role in WeWork’s downfall.[5][6]
In 2020, Neumann bought back some of WeGrow's assets and started Student of Life for Life (SOLFL).[19]
Personal life
Rebekah and American-Israeli entrepreneur Adam Neumann met in New York[1] and married in 2008.[5] They have six children.[20]
Neumann has come under criticism for endorsing pseudoscientific beliefs, such as the idea that meat has emotional memory that can be passed on through consumption.[6][21]