Uber held a special press call on Tuesday, hosted by board member Arianna Huffington and staffed with three of its highest ranking female staff. The call was..
Uber held a special press call on Tuesday, hosted by board member Arianna Huffington and staffed with three of its highest ranking female staff, including North American operations lead Rachel Holt, Chief HR officer Liane Hornsey and company comms lead Rachel Whetstone. The call was pretty clearly an attempt to counter-message some of the negative press Uber has faced, specifically around its culture and accusations of sexism.
Huffington kicked off the chat, acting as a sort of proxy for CEO Travis Kalanick and reiterating the founder’s commitment to accepting responsibility for the current state of Uber’s culture, and also responsibility for the transformation Uber is currently pursuing as a result. She highlighted Uber’s search for a COO, someone who can be a “true partner” to Kalanick, as part of this commitment. Kalanick’s absence on the call was explained using the COO search process at one point, as Whetstone later answered a press question as to his whereabouts by saying that he was busy with the COO interview process, as was board member and investor Bill Gurley, who is leading the board subcommittee responsible for the executive search.
Once again, Huffington also said that she’s going to be “holding [Uber’s] feet to the fire” with respect to their commitment to following through on their plan to truly effect change in the future. She said that there’s no longer any room for “brilliant jerks” at the company, and added that the ultimate goal is not just to “fix” what’s broken at Uber, but to actually make it “the most admired workplace to work at.”
Huffington also said that she is independent from the ongoing investigation into sexual harassment claims and Uber’s culture lead by former U.
