Dark-horse Dara hired to steer Uber
san francisco — It’s official. Dara Khosrowshahi is the chief executive officer of Uber Technologies.
The ride-hailing company made the announcement late on Tuesday, confirming reports by Bloomberg and others, as well as comments he made to the press. The selection of Expedia’s outgoing CEO concludes a months-long search to replace Travis Kalanick.
Uber took the early part of the week to wrap up negotiations and paperwork, following a contentious yet ultimately unanimous board vote. Khosrowshahi was the dark-horse candidate, and his name didn’t appear in public while other high-profile candidates such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Meg Whitman and General Electric chairman Jeffrey Immelt were known to be in the running for the job.
“Dara is the best person to lead Uber into the future building world-class products, transforming cities and adding value,” Uber said in a statement that had the names of Kalanick, co-founder Garrett Camp and other board members and executives.
Although Khosrowshahi, 48, called his new job “the opportunity of a lifetime” in an interview with Bloomberg, he’s facing a long list of challenges. The company is losing hundreds of millions of dollars a quarter. It’s staring down two Department of Justice investigations, one into the company’s Greyball software that obscured drivers from law enforcement officials and then a second, revealed on Tuesday, into bribes paid to foreign officials. — Bloomberg