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"The
board has confidence in Travis," said Arianna Huffington,
co-founder of news site Huffington Post and one of seven voting
Uber board members. The possibility of him resigning has not
"come up and we don't expect it to come up," she said.
But she added that Kalanick, 40, needed to change his leadership
style from that of a "scrappy entrepreneur" to be more like a
"leader of a major global company."
The privately held company, valued at $68 billion, is pushing
ahead in its search for a chief operating officer to help
Kalanick run the business, but gave no hints on possible
candidates or timing of an appointment.
Huffington and three Uber executives on the call said they were
working on repairing the company's tarnished image and improving
its culture and leadership after a series of embarrassing
setbacks, including allegations of sexual harassment from a
former employee and the recent departure of its president, Jeff
Jones, who cited deep misgivings about the company. Kalanick was
not on the call.
Uber expects to conclude an internal investigation into the
sexual harassment allegations by the end of April, Huffington
said The investigation was prompted by a former Uber employee
who last month published a blog post describing a workplace
where sexual harassment was common and went unpunished.
Huffington is part of a committee - along with Uber board
members David Bonderman of TPG Capital and Bill Gurley, a
venture capitalist at Benchmark and close adviser to Kalanick -
that will review the findings of the investigation.
Huffington pledged to make those findings public.
Meanwhile, the search for a COO - announced two weeks ago by
Kalanick - is continuing, Huffington said, without mentioning
any candidates by name or saying when the job would be filled.
She said the COO, a role that has not previously existed at Uber,
will be a "true partner" to Kalanick.
"This is the first time that Travis has really understood the
importance of having a partner," said Liane Hornsey, Uber's
chief human resources officer, on the call.
News service Bloomberg last month released a video that showed
Kalanick berating an Uber driver who had complained about cuts
to rates paid to drivers, resulting in Kalanick making a public
apology and admitting he needed leadership training.
(Reporting by Heather Somerville; Editing by Bill Rigby)
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