Daily Management Review

Uber's board of directors wants to diminish Kalanick's power


10/02/2017


On Tuesday, the Board of Directors of Uber Technologies will vote on a number of reforms in the company and a major deal with the SoftBank Group, Bloomberg reports citing sources. This will happen despite the fact that the co-owner and former CEO of the company Travis Kalanick suddenly put forward two new candidates for the board of directors.



Dan Taylor
Dan Taylor
This can dramatically change the form of company management and become the first step to one of the largest IPOs in history. Kalanick, who left the company in June, on Friday nominated former CEO of Merrill Lynch John Thain and former CEO of Xerox Ursula Burns to the board of directors. Corporate governance reforms have three main objectives: to give shareholders equal authority to vote, to take the company to an IPO in the next two years and to limit the power of Kalanick as a shareholder and board member. The reform will also allow the new Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, to appoint three members of the board of directors if the current board members vacate their seats. However, his appointment should be approved by half of the board of directors and half of the shareholders will have to approve his appointment. Another issue on the board of directors will be the sale of the company's shares worth $ 10 billion to Japanese SoftBank. The deal was discussed since the summer, before SoftBank had already invested in Uber's competitors in Asia.

source: bloomberg.com