Jeff Jones who served as the president of the ride-sharing business has stepped down from his position after only serving for a mere six months.
Uber’s president, as well as another prominent executive, are leaving the company, after the latest sign of rough patch ahead as the ride-hailing service company continues to face with months of scandal.
Uber which is based in San Francisco has in the last three month been faced with criticisms from both its investors and customers. This is after Uber faced controversies that exposed the management style of the company which is customers and investors found lacking in leadership. The company’s exposure has led to senior leaders in departments that oversee marketing, engineering, research and product development to step down from their position.
Jeff Jones was brought in from Target (where he was the Chief Marketing Officer) in 2016 September to serve as the company’s president where he was to work closely with Travis Kalanick to integrate the company’s marketing efforts with its operations in various cities.
Jones departure comes at a time when Uber’s executive Travis Kalanick had stated he would seek “leadership help” after a video was released to the public where Kalanick was involved in a confrontation with an Uber driver on regarding a drop in pricing. Kalanick announced that he would hire a chief operating officer after the video was released.
Jones remarked to Recode (recode is a tech news site): “It is now clear, however, that the beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber, and I can no longer continue as president of the ride-sharing business.”
A spokeswoman for Uber confirmed the news after Recode broke the news of Jones departure. Jones is not the only person to leave the ride-sharing Service Company this month. He has joined Brian McClendon, Ed Baker, Raffi Krikorian and Gary Marcus what is seen as an exodus from the popular company.
Amit Singhal was forced to leave the company after it was discovered that he failed to reveal a sexual harassment accusation that was lodged against him when he was working at Google. These departures come at a time when Uber id is dealing the fallout from the company’s piling controversies. Uber recently faced an estimated 200,000 users deleting their Uber App and a 10% drop in rides after the fallout from Presidents Trump’s first travel ban. This forced Kalanick to step down from President Trump’s economic think tank.
A sexual harassment allegation that was lodged by a former Uber employee led to criticism from Fraeda Kapor Klein and Mitch Kapor who were early investors in Uber. In February Waymo filed a lawsuit against Uber, alleging that Uber’s technology was modeled off stolen intellectual property and accused former employees of using the trade secrets at Uber. Anthony Levandowski, left Google to found the self-driving technology company Otto, which Uber later acquired for $680 million. Uber has denied those allegations and insists that they are false.
