On-demand ride-hailing company gets new CEO

abiola

August 28, 2017 11:55 AM

After a long spell of finding a suitable replacement for the co-founding CEO Travis Kalanick, the company finally arrives at one.

Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive of Expedia, takes over a company that has been plagued by scandal after scandal.

Dara Khosrowshahi has been chosen as new CEO for Uber.

Khosrowshahi who leads online travel company Expedia, has been announced as the Uber’s chief executive on Sunday, August 28, 2017.

The ride-hailing company which has been involved in a number of scandals in recent times is hoping to move on from that.

Mr. Khosrowshahi emerged as the leading candidate from a field of three finalists over a weekend of Uber board meetings, said sources, who spoke on an anonymous note giving the confidential nature of the information.

Khosrowshahi, 48, has been CEO of Expedia for 12 years and during that time Expedia's revenues grew from $2.1 billion in in 2005 to $8.7 billion in 2016. He turned Expedia into the biggest online travel agency in the US, owning travel sites like Hotels.com, Orbitz, Trivago, HomeAway, Travelocity as well as sites for vacation rentals, car rentals and so on.

In the race for the job was Chief executives of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and General Electric.

Uber has been without a leader since its co-founder Travis Kalanick stepped down on June 20 after bowing to pressure.

The former Uber CEO had reportedly grown unpopular among employees, investors and scandals, with stories of sex assault hitting the company in February.

abiola