Uber has received another jolt as president Jeff Jones resigned from the company after less than six months. Jones joined as Uber president in September last year. Before joining the ride hailing firm he served as chief marketing officer of retail giant Target.
Citing a source at the taxi booking app, the BBC reported that the resignation was completely unexpected.
Jones was reported to be unhappy with the company’s move to appoint a new chief operating officer and that he was not among the candidates.
Uber said in a statement: “We want to thank Jeff for his six months at the company and wish him all the best.”
After appointing Jones to improve its brand reputation, Uber has been hit by a series of controversies, including sexual harassment allegations and CEO Travis Kalanick’s behavior.
READ MORE: More bad news for Uber as VP resigns and new accusations surface
Uber also faced allegations of intellectual property rights theft from Google’s autonomous car unit Waymo and a row with regulators on the testing of its self-driving cars.
In an email to his staff on Sunday, Kalanick said: “After we announced our intention to hire a COO, Jeff came to the tough decision that he doesn’t see his future at Uber.
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“It is unfortunate that this was announced through the press, but I thought it was important to send all of you an email before providing comment publicly.”
Jones joins a list of top executives who left Uber recently. Engineering executive Amit Singhal was asked to resign after failing to disclose a sexual harassment allegation from his earlier job at Google.
Earlier this month, Uber’s vice president of product and growth Ed Baker stepped down after more than three years at the company.
Bloomberg reported that Brian McClendon, Uber’s vice president responsible for mapping programme, is also leaving the company to return to his hometown in Kansas.
