Uber appoints Dara Khosrowshahi as its new CEO

Photo AFP
Dara Khosrowshahi

AFP

Wednesday, 30 August, 2017 00:31

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Wednesday, 30 August, 2017 00:31

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After weeks of negotiations, Uber has finally officially appointed its new CEO, the boss of Expedia Dara Khosrowshahi, who will have a hard time to revive the group stuck in scandals, and that accumulates financial losses.

“We are delighted to announce that the board of directors of Uber has voted unanimously to recommend that Dara Khosrowshahi will become our new CEO,” wrote the group of car hire with driver in a message to employees sent to the press.

The board and management “are confident in the fact that Dara is the best person to lead Uber to the future”, says the text, which specifies that the new boss will see the employees “tomorrow” Wednesday.

“We are fortunate to be able to enjoy the experience, the talent and the vision of Dara”, also written as Uber, which states that the person concerned will be visited “in the coming weeks” to employees abroad and “spend time” with the drivers,

Uber, based in San Francisco, had proposed that the position, vacant since June, Dara Khosrowshahi Sunday, because they have not been able to agree on two other candidates, Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, and Jeff Immelt, former head of General Electric, according to the press.

Battle public

Barry Diller, chairman of the supervisory board of Expedia, had said Monday that Mr. Khosrowshahi was going to accept the position.

The appointment of Mr. Khosrowshahi should appease the spirits, after weeks of open conflict within the group executive committee, which is being torn on the name of the future chairman and CEO and on the fate of the former number one, the controversial Travis Kalanick.

Dara Khosrowshahi, 48 years old, at the head of Expedia since 2005, has largely contributed to its expansion, notably through acquisitions. Expedia is now one of the largest tour operators in line in the world.

It is “arrived in the United States at the age of 9 years old when her family fled Iran on the eve of the revolution” in 1979, according to Uber.

“He clearly has very great talent for this which is to navigate in territories difficult as well as to create growth”, according to analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies.

The new strong man of Uber will indeed be hard put to identify the horizon of the group, which has lost more than $ 600 million in the second quarter.

It will be necessary to decide the fate of Mr. Kalanick, pushed out by investors worried, and that doesn’t seem to digest his eviction.

He is accused by the funds Benchmark Capital Partners, a big investor, having maneuvered with the direction to return. Benchmark filed a complaint against him in early August, resulting in a battle public between pro-and anti-Kalanick.

Complaints in cascade

Known for his impetuous temperament, the old patron-founder of Uber, was on the hot seat for accusations of harassment in the group by an ex-engineer this winter. He is accused of having himself maintained a corporate culture that is sexist and brutal.

Worried about this bad publicity, Uber had ordered an audit on these accusations, the investigation, which called in particular to “review” the responsibilities of Mr. Kalanick.

The new CEO will also have to confront several judicial investigations, on suspicion of bribery of officials of foreign or on the use of a software allowing the drivers to avoid being identified by the authorities in areas where they do not have the right to operate.

Uber is also pursued by a subsidiary of Google, Waymo, specializing in autonomous cars, who is accused of theft of technologies.

The group is also set to back the taxis who see him as their programmed death, regulators of many countries that are trying to stop him, and even its own drivers, who are demanding better pay or status, more protective.

Established on the basis of raising funds from investors, the valuation of Uber is about $ 70 billion, is the largest start-up company in the world.

But, according to press reports, four investment firms have recently downgraded the value of their participation, thus reducing the theoretical value of Uber.