 |
| Advertisement |
As the embattled transportation company's eight-person board deliberated for hours each day over the weekend, members closed in on Whitman, 61, who had previously taken herself out of the running.
Whitman, a longtime technology executive who ran eBay and was a former candidate for the governor of California, had publicly and seemingly definitively withdrawn her name last month in a Twitter post. She stood by that assertion as recently as last week. (She even cited a country music song, ‘What Part of No (Don’t You Understand),” by Lorrie Morgan, to make her point.)
But some board members continued pressing her to take the job, according to two sources familiar with the board's thinking. Throughout the weekend, the board raced to come up with a package that would make it worth her while.
If Whitman took the position, she would become one of the most scrutinized and prominent women chief executives in Silicon Valley. Uber is one of the brightest start-ups the tech sector has produced over the past decade, and it is expected to move toward a massive public stock offering in the coming year or so. Whitman reportedly met with the board in San Francisco on Saturday afternoon.
Whitman has experience making bold moves to turn around companies. She took over the struggling 72-year-old Hewlett-Packard in 2011. The company known for making printers, servers, and PCS had long suffered from mismanagement and from drastic changes in the technology industry that brought competition from low-cost providers and the collapse of PC sales in favor of smartphones.
In 2015, she split HP into two publicly-traded companies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP, a decision that she argued would help make the lumbering hardware giant nimbler and stronger. The former, where she serves as chief executive, focuses on services for business while the other handles consumer hardware, personal computers and printers. The move has resulted in a slightly improved stock price for both companies.
Whitman is also former chief executive of e-commerce firm eBay, which she grew to $8 billion in revenue and 15,000 employees by the time she left in 2008.
In 2010, she ran for governor of California as a Republican and lost to Jerry Brown.
Whichever seasoned executive will ultimately take the helm, Uber faces a wholesale crisis that will require a leader who can transform the company’s culture, analysts say. Morale at Uber has plummeted in the wake of eight months of controversy, including reports of widespread discrimination and sexual harassment, lawsuits that threaten the company’s future, a leadership vacuum, and the ouster of chief executive and co-founder Travis Kalanick.
The previous front-runner, Jeff Immelt, also dropped out Sunday morning.
In a Twitter post Sunday, the outgoing GE chairman said he has removed himself from consideration. “I’ve decided not to pursue a leadership position at Uber,” Immelt said.
A third candidate, who is male, also met with the board. The identity of that candidate could not be learned.
Immelt, also 61, was eager for the job, a person familiar with the matter said, despite analysts' observations that he hails from a staid corner of American industry that couldn’t be further from Uber in terms of business and culture. GE makes much of its money selling and servicing jet engines, turbines, and hospital and oil-and-gas equipment; Uber is a Silicon Valley start-up with a reputation for youthful drive and rule-breaking.
0 comments: