Former Orbitz CEO and longtime Seattle technology leader Barney Harford has been named the COO of Uber, marking yet another Seattle leader who has joined the embattled ride-hailing company.
Former Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi took the reigns at Uber as its new CEO in September and has been working to fill high-level positions ever since, many of which had been empty for months or years before he arrived.
Harford is will now serve as Khosrowshahi’s right-hand man, overseeing operations at a company increasingly coming under public scrutiny following a set of cultural and legal scandals that led to the ouster of founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick.
Just Wednesday, a European Union court ruled that the company must follow the same regulations as traditional Taxi companies, the latest development in an ongoing struggle over how contractors driving for Uber should be treated by the law.
1/ Thrilled to be joining @Uber as COO. Looking fwd to working w @dkhos again to help @Uber achieve its full potential https://t.co/gdnXJfFrjS
— Barney Harford (@barneyh) December 20, 2017
Harford — who worked at Expedia from 1996 to 2006, holding roles such as President of Expedia Asia Pacific — is even more well known for his time at Orbitz. He joined Orbitz as CEO in 2009, and he eventually sold the travel company to Expedia in 2015.
“Thrilled to be joining @Uber as COO. Looking fwd to working w @dkhos again to help @Uber achieve its full potential,” Harford wrote in a Tweet. “@Uber already does more rides than the world’s airlines combined flies passengers, and provides flexible work opportunities to more people than any other company in the world.”
“The @Uber team clearly wants to turn a corner. Am honored to have the opportunity to play a role in making this important and much needed transition,” he said.
He has also served as a chairman or board member for a variety of tech startups and nonprofits and is currently the chairman of Seattle startup RealSelf. According to his LinkedIn page, Harford left the board of directors of LiquidPlanner this month after ten years in the role.
— Longtime AWS and Oracle leader Norman Gennaro has left Amazon to join customer service software provider Zendesk. He will serve as its SVP of worldwide sales.
Gennaro served as AWS territories market segment leader for more than five years, building it into a multi-billion dollar business for the company. He previously spent sixteen years working in sales at Oracle, most recently serving as a VP of the company.
Update: This story has been updated to clarify Harford’s role at LiquidPlanner: He was a member of the board of directors, not the chair of the company.
