Uber Policy Chief For India And South Asia Quits

Uber’s Chief of Policy for India and South Asia, Shweta Rajpal Kohli, quit the taxi hailing company a little over a year after joining the firm. This is the latest departure of a high level executive from the San Francisco based company.  

Kohli was charged with the responsibility to build Uber’s relations with the regulators and the government officials of India, in an attempt to expand its business. According to one source, Kohli was leading government engagements in the influential circles. Her resignation from the company might be a step back for Uber in the Indian market. Neither Uber India nor Kohli have spoken out about the resignation.

Shweta Rajpal Kohli is a former journalist who joined the taxi hailing startup last year. According to her LinkedIn profile, she was responsible for enhancing the understanding of Uber and its business with multiple stakeholders and creating a favorable regulatory and policy environment for the future of urban mobility. She also worked with the Delhi based news channel NDTV as the economic affairs editor for 11 years.

Reuters reported Kohli would be joining the cloud based software maker Salesforce.com Inc., next month. Uber’s European Policy Chief Christopher Burghardt also quit the company in October this year to join the electric vehicle charging network company Chargepoint. In India, which is the second biggest market for Uber, the company has regularly faced several regulatory and reputational hurdles. Currently, Uber has a presence in 30 cities but faces a fierce competition from homegrown cab aggregator Ola.

On Monday the company confirmed Japan based venture capital firm SoftBank, would be investing close to $ 10 billion in the company in concert with other investors. This investment might help the company recover from all the scandals and legal battles of the past year. Touted to be the biggest round of secondary transaction, this investment will also pave way for a series of sweeping changes in the governance of the company. According to sources, these changes will also include measures to reduce the influence of former CEO, Travis Kalanick, among other leadership changes.