Did Uber make a judgement error by appointing Dara Khosrowshahi as CEO, instead of its COO?

Clearly, the board of directors at Uber have spelt a definitive objective with their latest appointment, which is near-term business oriented.

But in doing so, they have missed out both, a near-term objective to rebuild Uber’s tarnished goodwill and the long-term goal to be that innovation engine which reimagines the logistics and transportation industry.

And that is primarily why Dara’s appointment has come as a big surprise.

Sure, Uber needs to claw its way back to profits, especially after it reportedly lost USD 645 million in the last financial quarter.

While this is important from a business standpoint, it is currently not its most worrying problem.

Uber has been mired in controversies of not the right kind.

This is turning both its customers and its employees away to the delight of its biggest competitor Lyft, which has been gaining ground since the #DeleteUber campaign in January.

The most publicized branch of this problematic and fast-growing tree has been its battle with sexism and unfair treatment of its employees.

One thing led to another after a viral blog post in February triggered a spate of negativity for the ride-sharing company, finally leading to its then CEO Travis Kalanick’s exit.

Within a span of four months, Uber ironically went from experimenting with cars that were driver-less, to becoming a company that was leader-less.

The board did make a positive statement by recently appointing a female leader in Frances Fei, who stepped into the position of Senior VP of Leadership & Strategy with the sole responsibility of ensuring that their women employees are treated better, in addition to mending the issues on a work culture front.

It was a right move that was perfectly set up for the appointment of, perhaps, another visionary leader to start the long-term work of pushing Uber into another orbit.

While Expedia is a successful company from a business standpoint, it is not known for re-imagining travel, just as Google is known for re-imagining how information is organised and discovered, or for that matter how Facebook is known for how people connect and share their lives online.

Uber is at a stage where it can either become a purely utilitarian profit making local transportation company or re-imagine point-to-point mobility and deliver on some of the moon shots such as driver-less cars.

An ideal choice would have been a visionary leader with an emotional connection to occupy Travis’ empty chair.

On the contrary, while Dara promises to bring a lot to the table from an operational standpoint, I’m not sure if he boasts of a soaring 'emotional quotient'.

And I am yet to hear his vision on mobility. It is for this very reason that I think Dara’s credentials make him more suitable for a COO role, rather than that of a CEO, a model that worked quite well in Facebook’s case with Mark Zuckerberg as CEO and Sheryl Sandberg as the COO.

Let’s not forget that the nature of Uber’s business is complex, with operations across multiple countries to be looked after.

There is no doubt that Dara fits this role like a fish in water, but then I’d rather have him focus on just the operational aspect, and have someone else solely dedicated to re-joining the isolated pieces of Uber’s vision and public image.

Both these things need to happen simultaneously for Uber’s fortunes to truly turn, and I’m afraid that it seems like it is currently too tall an ask from the former Expedia chief.

It will be interesting to see how the immediate future shapes up for Uber. The first step has already played out as Dara officially confirmed to US media outlets that he will take up the mammoth job offered to him.

The former Iranian refugee and explicitly Anti-Trump leader won’t have a shortage of challenges to face, apart from the obvious problems plaguing one of the most prolific private technology firms in Silicon Valley.

One can only hope that he lives up to the faith that the board has entrusted upon him. Expedia’s stock value has risen by 32 percent this year, so if anybody is relieved at this point, it is the shareholders of Uber Technologies Inc.

As far as image rebuilding is concerned, which is the more pressing issue for the company at this point, one would have to just wait and watch.

(The author is a startup mentor and former head of merchant and seller ecosystem at Flipkart. Views are personal. Edited for Moneycontrol.)