Yesterday, Uber’s board of directors have made a vote to approve governance changes which will shift the balance of power amongst some of the board members as well as certain key individuals. These changes were brought up by newly minted CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi as part of a plan to change Uber’s current image.
This balance of power refers to the immense influence which former CEO, Travis Kalanick, had over the board (he is still a member of the 11-person board). Amongst other things, the board has approved the investment from Softbank which would buy a large amount of Uber’s shares.
In a statement to the New York Times, Uber’s board said it had “voted unanimously to move forward with the proposed investment by SoftBank and with governance changes that would strengthen its independence and ensure equality among all shareholders.”
The board has been torn in recent months with multiple workplace culture scandals to management issues as well as lawsuits from Waymo and losing their license to operate in London. One of Uber’s early investors, Benchmark, a VC firm was one of the parties which made Travis Kalanick resign as CEO. This led to a rift between the two board members and both had been at logger heads with each other.
