Expedia Chief People Officer Nikki Krishnamurthy is leaving the travel giant, GeekWire has learned.
Krishnamurthy led the company’s global human resources strategy. She first joined Bellevue, Wash.-based Expedia in 2009 as vice president of human resources, and was vice president of Expedia’s Local Expert division before becoming chief people officer.
An Expedia spokesperson provided this statement to GeekWire:
“We can confirm that after 8 terrific years at Expedia Group, Nikki will be leaving the company. We have a very capable interim leadership team in place and we’ll be beginning our search for Expedia Group’s next Chief People Officer imminently.”
It’s unclear where Krishnamurthy is headed next. One potential destination is Uber, where her former boss — ex-Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi — is now CEO of the ride-hailing giant, leading it through major cultural changes, continued growth, and a potential IPO next year.
Krishnamurthy recently “liked” a LinkedIn post from Uber Chief People Officer Liane Hornsey that details how Uber is changing its culture.
Other Expedia leaders have followed Khosrowshahi to Uber. Longtime Expedia exec Barney Harford joined Uber in December as the company’s COO.
Uber has a large and growing engineering office in Seattle, with 200 employees. Uber also employs 50 people at a separate operations office in Seattle, where it has more than 15,000 active drivers and more than 800,000 active riders as of December 2017.
Before joining Expedia, Krishnamurthy worked at Washington Mutual and PNC Financial Services Group. She graduated with a psychology degree from Rutgers University.
