Uber has been under the storms eye for a long time now and the most important blow was the stepping down of the Uber founder Travis three months ago. Well, apparently things look brighter now since Dara Khosrowhahi is the final choice for filling in the void created by Travis’s exit.
After months of contentious search, Uber has finally chosen its new CEO to lead the company out of turmoil. As per two undisclosed sources, Dara Khosrowshahi, who leads the online travel company Expedia, is set to be its chief executive.
Dara Khosrowshahi emerged as the leading candidate from a final list of three candidates which included Jeffrey R. Immelt, the former chief of General Electric and Meg Whitman, the chief of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. While the board was leaning towards Meg Whitman, as per sources, Whitman could not agree on terms in which she would take over as chief executive.
Dara Khosrowshahi joins Uber at a time when it is crucial for the $70 Bn company to return to stability after Travis Kalanick stepped down from the CEO job under investor pressure on June 20. Kalanick’s resignation came after a year of scandals and currently he is also being sued by early investor Benchmark Capital accusing him of fraud, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty.
Dara Khosrowshahi, who has been President and CEO of Expedia since 2005, the world’s largest online travel agency by bookings, has experience in a digital industry which, like Uber, is concerned with logistics and movement of people. The publicly traded company is smaller than the privately-held Uber, with a market capitalisation of around $23 Bn in comparison with Uber’s private valuation of nearly $70 Bn. In 2015, he was the highest paid CEO in the country, mainly because of a nearly $91 Mn stock option grant. He is also on the board of the New York Times Company and sports merchandise company Fanatics Inc.
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