Miguel McKelvey
Miguel McKelvey is the co-founder and former Chief Culture Officer of WeWork, the global coworking and real estate technology company. A architect by training, he helped shape WeWork's unique community-driven approach to workspace design.
Miguel McKelvey's Bio
Miguel McKelvey is the co-founder and former chief culture officer of WeWork, the shared-workspace company that redefined commercial real estate for a generation of freelancers and startups. Born in 1974 and raised in Eugene, Oregon, he came up through an unusual route — a basketball scholarship at the University of Oregon, where he earned a Bachelor of Architecture in 1999, after working as a busboy and spending two summers at an Alaskan fish processing plant to pay his way.
In 2010, McKelvey and Adam Neumann launched WeWork out of a single location in New York. The idea was simple: turn empty floors into furnished, community-minded office space for small companies and entrepreneurs. It exploded. McKelvey ran design and culture across a global operation spanning dozens of countries, speaking at every all-company meeting and building the brand identity that made WeWork feel like something between a startup incubator and a lifestyle destination.
When the company's valuation collapsed and Neumann departed in 2019-2020, McKelvey left too. He has since kept a low profile — deliberately, by all accounts — while quietly building new ventures, including a sneaker project and a broader initiative called Happiness at Scale, rooted in the culture-design questions he wrestled with inside WeWork.
Career Timeline
1974 — Born in Eugene, Oregon
Miguel McKelvey was born in Eugene, Oregon.
1992 — Graduated South Eugene High School
Miguel McKelvey graduated from South Eugene High School.
1997 — Letterman on Oregon Ducks Basketball Team
Miguel McKelvey was a letterman on the Oregon Ducks Basketball Team.
1999 — Earned Bachelor of Architecture, University of Oregon
Miguel McKelvey earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Oregon.
2010 — Co-founded WeWork with Adam Neumann
Miguel McKelvey co-founded WeWork with Adam Neumann in 2010.
2019 — Named Chief Culture Officer, WeWork
Miguel McKelvey was named Chief Culture Officer at WeWork.
2020 — Left WeWork following company restructuring
Miguel McKelvey left WeWork following the company's restructuring.
2023 — Launched Happiness at Scale and sneaker venture
Miguel McKelvey launched Happiness at Scale and a sneaker venture.
Episodes
Advice Line: What’s Your Value?
Guy Raz hosts an Advice Line mashup with WeWork's Miguel McKelvey, Paperless Post's Alexa Hirschfeld, and Chomps co-founders Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali. Three founders call in with value-proposition dilemmas: Megan Downey needs to prove the ROI of her Shiki Wrap pop-up demos, Amanda Ballweg can't make Woofsie's dog enrichment cards click with online shoppers, and Mark Goldfarb wants to hire without compromising his artisanal pesto brand. Together they reveal how to translate product features into clear customer value, turn live experiences into scalable content, and hire people who embody the brand's mission.
Advice Line with Miguel McKelvey of WeWork
WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey dispenses unfiltered advice to three founders at growth plateaus. A high-end pants maker learns to embed her "why" everywhere, a grief care business discovers AI-optimized content could be its new growth engine, and a history merch brand $750K strong realizes polished Instagram is losing to raw storytelling. Miguel's prescription: tell your story so relentlessly that customers can't forget you exist.
