Uber board clips CEO’s wings after scandals

Kalanick will have to share some key responsibilities with a chief operating officer

Uber Technologies Inc chief executive officer Travis Kalanick told staff he plans to take a leave of absence, without disclosing a return date. The company will be run by a management committee as it tries to navigate a wave of scandals.

Upon Kalanick’s return, Uber will strip him of some duties and appoint an independent chair to limit his influence, according to an advance copy of a report prepared for the board.

At a staff meeting Tuesday, the company conveyed the results of a probe conducted by Eric Holder, the former US attorney-general who Uber hired to look into allegations of harassment, discrimination and an aggressive culture. The 47 recommendations include creating a board oversight committee, rewriting Uber’s cultural values, reducing alcohol use at work events, and prohibiting intimate relationships between employees and their bosses.

Uber’s board met Sunday to review a detailed version of the report and voted unanimously to approve the recommendations. Afterward, the San Franciscobased company ousted Emil Michael, Uber’s head of business.

The board will move to diminish Kalanick’s role once he comes back by giving some of the CEO’s job responsibilities to a chief operating officer — a position Uber has been actively recruiting for but has yet to fill. This person would “act as a full partner with the CEO but focus on day-to-day operations, culture and institutions within Uber,” the report said.

“The ultimate responsibility, for where we’ve gotten and how we’ve gotten here, rests on my shoulders,” Kalanick wrote in an email to employees. “For Uber 2.0 to succeed, there is nothing more important than dedicating my time to building out the leadership team. But if we are going to work on Uber 2.0, I also need to work on Travis 2.0 to become the leader that this company needs and that you deserve.”

Uber lost or removed much of its management team in recent months as scandal after scandal emerged. The 14,000plus workforce lacks a clear No 2 who could run things in Kalanick’s stead.

Uber has started taking steps to fill out the executive bench.

Last week, it hired Harvard Business School’s Frances Frei as senior vice-president of leadership and strategy, and will add Nestle SA’s Wan Ling Martello as an independent director.