All About Uber's New CEO Dara Khosrowshahi

Uber has been in the news for the greater part of this year, and it hasn’t been for the good. Finally, Uber took the necessary steps to replace their fearless leader and chief executive officer. It was unclear for a while who would take over the position from Travis Kalanick who was Uber’s CEO during recent scandals.

Kalanick admitted to having personal issues that hindered his ability to perform as the leader Uber needed. After stepping down, Uber’s board took on the task of finding a new fearless leader. Jeff Immelt, the chairman of General Electric was the top candidate for a good amount of time, along with Meg Whitman, the CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Just a week ago, Uber announced the new person talking the position, Dara Khosrowshahi. Khosrowshahi, who was previously CEO at Expedia, was not a well-known candidate for the position. However, industry experts believe that he has all the experience to create the change Uber needs.

Who is Khosrowshahi? He is an immigrant from Iran who moved to the United States in 1978 to complete his Bachelor of Science and start a career in investment banking. After moving around multiple executive positions, Khosrowshahi eventually became Expedia CEO and held that position for twelve years, increasing $15 billion in bookings to $72 billion in 2016.

One of Khosrowshahi’s most relevant accomplishments was bringing one of Expedia’s company’s, Trivago, to an IPO. This experience will hopefully help Khosrowshahi as he leads Uber into their own IPO soon, following the board’s recommendations.

The biggest concern about Khosrowshahi as CEO is the influence that previous CEO Travis Kalanick will have on him. Kalanick still holds a seat on the board and could try to influence the decisions Khosrowshahi makes for Uber going forward.

Khosrowshahi has a huge role as CEO of Uber at a time when the company desperately needs a face of leadership to showcase and build up their broken reputation, and rebuild the company culture. One of the first things Khosrowshahi should do is establish a written set of rules all Uber employees need to sign onto in order to prevent Uber from getting back to its previous state (which was full of sexual harassment and discrimination).

Out of all the possible candidates, Khosrowshahi was a great pick and will hopefully be the change Uber needs right now!

Felicia is a Multimedia Guru at RideGuru. She recently graduated from Bentley University with a B.S. in Marketing and minor in Computer Information Systems. She is an avid rideshare user who enjoys both domestic and international travel.

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