After two months of the resignation of Travis Kalanick from the CEO position, Uber Technologies Inc has finally found a new chief executive officer in Expedia Inc.’s Dara Khosrowshahi, according to a Bloomberg report.
However, the agency couldn’t get confirmation from Uber as it refused to disclose the name of the person.
The news comes as the global ride-hailing leviathan has been interviewing many former executives since the ouster of Travis Kalanick.
Among the list of interested applicants were Susan Wojcicki, who leads YouTube; Adam Bain, Twitter’s former chief operating officer; David Cush, a former CEO at Virgin America; the former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer; Thomas Staggs, an ex-COO at Disney; and the former Softbank CEO Nikesh Arora.
The final decision was taken yesterday when Uber’s board had met over the weekend for a last round of interviews with candidates and to discuss options.
According to the report, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. CEO Meg Whitman gained support from some board members after presenting her vision for the company. Besides, General Electric Co. Chairman Jeffrey Immelt was another finalist for the top-notch position. But, both of them failed to win the board’s full backing.
However, the board’s pick was not-so-popular name — Dara Khosrowshahi, who didn’t appear anywhere in the final list that was plagued by leaks, boardroom infighting and a lawsuit involving two directors.
Khosrowshahi, 48, an Iranian-American has an engineering degree from Brown University. He started his career with investment banking at Allen & Co. and later joined billionaire Barry Diller at IAC. Khosrowshahi led an acquisition binge in online travel, expanding IAC’s Expedia with takeovers of Orbitz and HomeAway.
However, experts said that Khosrowshahi will face a number of challenges as he is joining the the organization when it is grappling with persistent losses, a high-stakes trade secrets suit filed by Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, a tarnished brand and low morale among Uber’s more than 15,000 global employees.
