WeWork changes the way Malaysians work and accelerates Malaysia’s growth with their debut in Equatorial Plaza.
WeWork – the platform for creators that provides the space, community, and services "to help people make a life, not just a living" – has officially launched its debut space in Equatorial Plaza.
From left to right: Melisa Wang, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, PostCo; Dennis Tan, Director & Head, Investor Relations - Americas & Europe, InvestKL; Turochas “T” Fuad, Managing Director, WeWork Southeast Asia; Datuk Zainal Amanshah, CEO, InvestKL; Hans-Peter Ressel, Founder and CEO, Momentum Commerce and Eyad Zahra, Head of Community and Member Experience, WeWork Southeast Asia celebrating the official opening of WeWork Equatorial Plaza.
Situated in the heart of Kuala Lumpur’s Golden Triangle – with close proximity to Pavilion and KLCC – WeWork’s Equatorial Plaza space is the largest in Southeast Asia to date, accommodating 1,900 members in around 100,000 square feet of space across five floors (from the 18th to 22nd).
Bolstered by strong demand in the city, WeWork will also be expanding to upcoming locations in Mid Valley in the latter half of this year.
The opening of the Equatorial Plaza space signals WeWork’s commitment to expanding its footprint in Southeast Asia, with the company growing to 19 locations comprising more than 13,000 desks across the region in just one year. Strengthening the Southeast Asia network, other cities with WeWork locations include Singapore, Ho Chi Minh, Manila, Jakarta, and Bangkok.
With WeWork Equatorial Plaza located in a prominent landmark, in a 50-storey mixed-use integrated development of offices and a hotel, the neighbourhood hosts several spots for food, drinks, and shopping malls.
Along with its close proximity to the Petronas Twin Towers, it also boasts a variety of train lines within walking distance such as the Dang Wangi LRT station and Raja Chulan monorail station, offering seamless transport options which makes it an ideal spot for members.
“With Kuala Lumpur increasingly becoming a hotbed for innovation and modern development, we see huge potential coupled by Malaysia’s steady economic growth and unique position as a high-value market for foreign investment in Southeast Asia. While our regional strength has proven to be a springboard in enabling creator communities to flourish, we are committed to Malaysia being a platform for fostering greater innovations among the local business community,” said Turochas “T” Fuad, Managing Director, WeWork Southeast Asia.
Turochas ‘T’ Fuad, Managing Director, WeWork Southeast Asia, speaking on the importance of WeWork’s Malaysian entry to the company’s expanding footprint in Southeast Asia and WeWork’s vision of humanizing the future of work in Malaysia.
“Together with our Global Impact Report released recently that demonstrates tangible impacts from the WeWork Economy in cities globally, WeWork is primed to contribute to Malaysia’s vibrant economy and we look forward to positively impact the surrounding community, neighbourhood, and cities.”
Transforming spaces by integrating the best of design, technology, and hospitality
With the community as a catalyst for WeWork and weaving its ‘global company, local playbook’ approach, design forms a key threshold in its spaces to inspire further collaboration and interaction among the members.
By evolving space into experience, the space is complemented with a mature palette of white and warm oaks, while integrating different textures along with neon lights playfully highlighting certain spaces.
Art taking cues from the local landscape – inspirations of Malaysian flora and fauna are integrated to make the space feel vibrant, forms of local transportation such as buses were also translated into artwork, along with colourful gradient panels acting as a backdrop to the Community bar and doubling as an art moment.
The lounge area acts as the nucleus of the space and introduces accents of different shades where the combination of materials added layers of texture, character, and warmth to the space.
Ensuring that ample natural light in the lounge provides members with a bright and airy space, WeWork spaces provide habitats for creativity and focus, on top of truly dynamic environments that shape member experiences.
Strengthening local communities and fuelling innovation for enterprises and small-business growth
WeWork is fuelling the innovation economy – high-growth sectors such as technology, creative, and professional services, and advanced manufacturing – and is committed to helping cities like Kuala Lumpur create communities of innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity.
As a company of action, WeWork is committed to amplifying the impact by bringing people together. WeWork Equatorial Plaza welcomes members ranging from global enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to startups and freelancers.
Grounded in WeWork’s mission of supporting its members, WeWork is also growing in tandem with them and is here to connect people through intelligent design by fostering community and opportunities.
Home to members from diverse fields, including the creative and design sector, financial services and investment tech companies, as well as advertising and marketing agencies with a presence in Malaysia, WeWork Equatorial Plaza houses companies such as Momentum Commerce.
Second from left to right) Melisa Wang, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, PostCo; Hans-Peter Ressel, Founder and CEO, Momentum Commerce, and Eyad Zahra, Head of Community and Member Experience, WeWork Southeast Asia engaging in a panel session on the benefits of being in a WeWork space and how community is powering their success.
“Looking for an agile space that allows us to continuously innovate, partnering with WeWork also gave us the flexibility to scale efficiently based on our growth. Seeing how our team thrives in this dynamic environment and with Momentum Commerce in its scale-up phase, it was crucial that the place in which we build our business was part of a community that encourages greater collaboration. In addition, being plugged into WeWork’s global network allows us to tap onto more opportunities that will help us accelerate faster towards our goals,” said Hans Peter Ressel, CEO and founder of Momentum Commerce.
Empowered by its global strength, WeWork has also supported growth for companies to expand seamlessly to other markets. PostCo, a new, easy, and convenient parcel service, and StashAway, an intelligent wealth management platform – respectively from WeWork E. Town Central in Ho Chi Minh and WeWork City House in Singapore – have expanded to Equatorial Plaza to become two of the location’s first members.
“PostCo is scaling up its operations, currently operating in Malaysia, Singapore, and now Vietnam. As we saw how our teams benefited greatly from a WeWork, it was only a natural fit in being in a WeWork once it entered Malaysia. Giving us the agility to scale our business across markets, the environment that WeWork provides amidst its community of members has also been important in attracting and retaining a team of highly-talented individuals that have helped us to grow regionally in just a few years,” said Melisa Wang, COO and co-founder of PostCo.
WeWork economy helping individuals and businesses thrive, energise neighbourhoods, and accelerate economic growth
By empowering people and businesses to pursue their purpose, supporting a positive economic ripple effect in our neighbourhoods and cities, WeWork recently released its first annual Global Impact Report, measuring the economic effect of their community in 75 cities around the world.
With WeWork, bringing new people, businesses, and economic activity to neighbourhoods. Seventy percent of WeWork members are new to the neighbourhood, and one in 10 has moved closer to their WeWork locations since joining. This means more business for neighbouring shops, cafes, restaurants, and pubs.
Along with being a powerful multiplier for cities, the global average economic multiplier is 1.7 which is responsible for millions more in spending and taxes – a boon to local and state governments; together with the WeWork economy is big and getting bigger, supporting $122.3 billion of GDP worldwide – roughly the size of the economies of cities like Vancouver, Dublin, or Austin (Texas).
Strengthening its presence in Malaysia, WeWork remains committed to contributing back to the local community and economy while building the first global physical platform designed to bring people together to pursue their purpose.
About WeWork
WeWork is a platform for creators, providing more than 400,000 members around the world with space, community, and services through both physical and virtual offerings. Its mission is to create a world where people work to make a life, not just a living. WeWork currently has 425 physical locations in over 100 cities and 27 countries around the world.
Founded in 2010 by Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey in New York, the company now employs more than 11,000 globally. WeWork seeks ‘creators’ from all industries and companies big and small to become members, with a suite of WeWork-specific membership benefits in each country and a local staff in each city.
Over 45,000 companies and more than 400,000 members are now based at a WeWork, with member companies ranging from start-ups to household names including Dell, KPMG, GE, Microsoft, and Samsung. More than 70% of WeWork’s members collaborate with each other and its international locations serve as convenient bases for business travel, enabling a great degree of work flexibility for both multinationals and small-to-medium-sized businesses alike, as well as options for easy expansion into new markets.
For more information, visit wework.com
