The Uber Technologies Inc. veteran overseeing its safety operation
s is set to depart, setting off a second round of executive changes this year at a time when the rideshare giant is being scr
utinized in court over the measures it takes to protect riders.
Gus Fuldner, a senior vice president for safety and core services w
ho has been with the company for more than a decade, will leave the company in January, he said in a LinkedIn post o
n Dec. 18. That follows the departure earlier this year of another longtime e
xecutive and former SVP for delivery, Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty.
When Gore-Coty left, then-SVP for mobility Andrew Mac
donald was promoted and named the company’s first chief operating offi
cer since 2019, c
onsolidating his leadership over Uber’s core ride-hailing and delivery units.
The management changes come as Uber is facing thousands of lawsuits in the US from mostly fema
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le passengers who said their Uber drivers sexually assaulted or harassed them. In September, Uber won a first-of-its-k
ind jury trial that determined it didn’t fail its legal duty to use the utmost care and caution in maintaining the safet
y of its passengers. More trials are set to start early next year.
Uber isn’t naming Fuldner’s replacement, but existing heads of safety and insurance under him will report to
Macdonald, who also oversees complementary functions like customer support, an Uber spokesperson told Bl
oomberg. Macdonald also has purview over other key growth areas su
ch as autonomous vehicle strategy and advertising.
The engineering and product teams for the safety function and c
ore services will move under Chief Technology Officer Praveen Nepp
alli Naga and Chief Product Officer Sachin Kansal, said CEO Dara
Khosrowshahi in a separate LinkedIn post.
Photo: Uber headquarters in San Francisco, California. Ph
otographer: Michaela Vatcheva/Bloomberg