Uber has elected head of travel company Expedia Inc, Dara Khosrowshahi as its new head, Reuters reports.
Reuters quoted two sources with knowledge of the situation as saying that the Expedia chief executive officer was appointed to the Uber hot seat on Sunday.
Khosrowshahi has a proven track record in driving growth while delivering profit, which is precisely what the struggling ride-share company is now in need. Khosrowshahi has also proven that he has the ability to make a company a leader in its field, with his exploits at Expedia in the ever-changing and competitive industry of online travel.
The Expedia CEO has been with the company for 12 years, was not publicly known to be part of the top runners for the position left vacant by Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick.
Expedia is also based in Bellevue, Washington, which makes Khosrowshahi a bit of an outsider to Silicon Valley, which many think will be a positive contrast to the “tech bro” culture established at Uber by Kalanick.
Khosrowshahi, 48, is an Iranian-American businessman who emigrated to the United States as a child in 1978 with his parents following the Iranian Revolution. He has an engineering degree from Brown University, and in 2015, was the highest paid CEO in the USA.
As CEO of Uber, Khosrowshahi will take on the formidable task of repairing Uber’s damaged reputation and investor relationships, rebuilding employee morale and turning around a business that has suffered losses over the last seven years.
Neither Uber nor Expedia have commented on the media reports.