It’s raining men
Uber’s struggle to find a woman boss
A company trying to recover from allegations of rampant sexism might reasonably think that hiring a female chief executive would help it restore credibility with customers and potential employees in a tight marketplace for talent.
But what if no women wanted the job?
That looks to be the case for Uber, the troubled ride-hailing company trying to replace deposed chief executive Travis Kalanick after a reign defined by high-flying growth and a toxic brand of corporate machismo.
In the wake of Kalanick’s departure, several A-list female executives have made it clear they were not interested in the role.
Indeed, after a nationwide search the company has come up short, it has no women left on its current shortlist, which is down to three CEO candidates, according to people familiar with the search.
Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, was a top pick, but she didn’t want the job. Neither did Susan Wojcicki, chief of Google-owned YouTube. General Motors chief executive Mary Barra and EasyJet CEO Carolyn McCall, were reportedly approached, but did not pan out. Last week, HP chief executive Meg Whitman took herself out of the running with a post on Twitter.
“Normally I do not comment on rumours,” she tweeted, “but the speculation about my future and Uber has become a distraction.”
While it’s not yet known who will become Uber’s next chief executive, it is likely to be a white male, possibly one who hails from one of the most old-school of US industries — outgoing GE chairman Jeffrey R Immelt, the only known member of the top three.
Female executives and recruiters in Silicon Valley expressed frustration that Uber wasn’t going to wind up with a woman at the helm.
“We are disappointed, of course,” said Joelle Emerson, chief executive of Paradigm, a diversity consultancy for large tech companies and Silicon Valley startups. “It could have communicated a commitment on the company’s part to having a more inclusive culture. Though certainly I don’t think hiring a woman would have guaranteed that.”
Workplace experts pointed to “the glass cliff”, in which women are more often called into corporate leadership roles in times of crisis, with all the risks of failure that
It could have communicated a commitment on the company’s part to having a more inclusive culture. Though certainly I don’t think hiring a woman would have guaranteed that. Joelle Emerson, chief executive of Paradigm
entails. A 2013 review of CEO transitions in Fortune 500 companies over a 15-year period found that white women, as well as women and men of colour, were more likely than white men to get promoted to CEO when firms were performing poorly.
“As much as I would love to see more women chief executives, too often women get the clean-up jobs, and I’d prefer to not always see women get the clean-up jobs,” said Elizabeth Ames, senior vice president at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology.
She pointed to Marissa Mayer, who received outsized positive attention when she left her job as a Google executive to run Yahoo, and outsized negative attention when she failed to turn that company around.
Ellen Pao, who became CEO of the online discussion site Reddit during a time of tumult, was pushed out by angry Reddit users in 2015. Sheri McCoy is stepping down as CEO of Avon Products in response to activist investors. The CEO of food giant Mondolez, Irene Rosenfeld, is also resigning.
There is at least one example where such appointments turn out well. In 2008, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg was brought on to be the “adult in the room” alongside then-24-yearold Mark Zuckerberg, Emerson said. Today Sandberg is widely considered to be one of the world’s most successful executives.
“There are serious challenges for women who step into these roles. Because there are so few of them, the spotlight is much brighter, and if they don’t succeed, they aren’t judged in the same way a male CEO who didn’t succeed would be,” said Ames.
Some of the female executives and consultants in Silicon Valley interviewed by the Washington Post noted that the expectation to create a welcoming culture to women was only one of the daunting tasks facing the person who becomes Uber’s next leader. The company has had to scale down its global ambitions considerably. It was forced to retreat in Russia and China, where it was quashed by local rivals. In the US, Uber’s nemesis, Lyft, is gaining ground by exploiting Uber’s scandals: Lyft ridership more than doubled in the last year.
Even as Uber grows revenue — net revenue was US$6.5 billion ($8.8b) last year, the company told
Bloomberg — it is still leaking cash, to the tune of US$2.8b in 2016. The new CEO will have to cut down those costs dramatically if he — and it surely will be a he — is to take the company public.