Uber Technologies Inc is vowing to head down a new road and become a more humane company following a wave of ugly developments, including allegations of rampant sexual harassment and a video of a profanity-laced confrontation between the ride-hailing company’s chief executive and a disgruntled driver.
The pledge came in a contrite conference call held on Tuesday with some of the reporters who have been covering the incidents that have painted an unflattering portrait of the company, threatening to trigger a backlash among the riders and drivers who have propelled its rapid rise.
Even as it acknowledges past mistakes, Uber says the fallout has not damaged its business yet.
Ridership in the US during the first 10 weeks of this year is up from the same time last year, said Rachel Holt, who oversees Uber’s operations in the US and Canada.
Holt was one of three women who handled Tuesday’s damage control, joining Uber’s only female board member, Arianna Huffington, and Liane Hornsey, the company’s head of human resources.
Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick was conspicuously absent from Tuesday’s call, though he is in the eye of the storm thrashing the company.
Company representatives said Kalanick could not attend because he was busy interviewing the candidates vying to become the company’s chief operating officer, a helping hand that Kalanick has said he needs to “grow up” at the age of 40.
Besides berating an Uber driver last month for complaining about the company’s pay scale, Kalanick also has been skewered for creating a boorish culture that culminated in a former female engineer alleging management looked the other way after she and other women reported being propositioned by their male colleagues.
Last month, Kalanick hired former US attorney general Eric Holder to lead an investigation into the sexual harassment charges leveled by the former engineer, Susan Fowler.
Holder’s report is to be completed and publicly released by the end of next month, Huffington said.
A separate report breaking down the number of men, women and minorities in key jobs at Uber would be released for the first time by the end of this month.
Other technology companies have been releasing similar demographic reports for several years.
Huffington said Uber’s board would not have allowed Kalanick to remain on the job unless he had apologized for his mistakes and agreed to hire a chief operating officer.
Kalanick “started as a scrappy entrepreneur and now he needs to bring the changes in himself and in the way he leads,” Huffington said.
The backlash to the revelations about Uber’s culture has resulted in management defections, including the resignation of Uber president Jeff Jones after just six months on the job.
“I will be holding their feet to the fire,” Huffington said of Kalanick and the rest of Uber’s management.
“Uber must change to be as successful in the next decade as it has been in the last seven years,” she said.
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