Uber Is Said to Target Titans of Industry in CEO Search

Uber hopes to name a new leader by early September to replace its ousted chief executive officer and steer the ride-hailing business out of a turbulent period, according to Bloomberg.

They have set their sights on the business world’s most seasoned chief executives to fill the leadership vacuum left by the departure of co-founder Travis Kalanick. Candidates for Uber CEO, including Jeffrey Immelt, must be capable of restoring confidence in the ride-hailing company after months of controversy.

Immelt, the outgoing CEO of General Electric, is on a shortlist of fewer than six candidates to run Uber and prepare the business for an initial public offering, people familiar with the matter said. The company has been moving to narrow the list and name a successor to Kalanick, who was ousted under pressure from some of the company’s major investors last month. Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett Packard, had also been under consideration, but she publicly withdrew her name Thursday night, saying speculation of a possible move had been a distraction.

Immelt, 61, is scheduled to step down next week from the CEO position at GE that he’s held since 2001. John Flannery, a 30-year GE veteran, will take over, with Immelt remaining chairman until the end of the year. Immelt embraced Silicon Valley in recent years, with the launch of a digital division in 2015 that he said could make GE a top 10 software company by the end of the decade. He has tried to bring startup strategies to the manufacturing behemoth, and GE even adopted the slogan “the digital industrial company.“

The new chief will inherit a long list of other challenges, many of which have been festering for years but came to a head in recent months. Still, Uber has the potential to become a once-in-a-generation business. Gross bookings in 2016 were $20 billion. Those numbers have been growing ever larger this year, while losses shrink. And there are still investors out there who have expressed interest in climbing aboard.