Mark MacGann: The Uber whistleblower who exposed company’s illegal tactics

(Image credit: mark-macgann/LinkedIn)

One day after a massive exposé revealed Uber’s illegal tactics, Mark MacGann, a former top lobbyist for the cab hailing giant, came forward to identify himself as the source of the leak.

The leaked documents span the five years between 2012 to 2017 - a period during which Uber pursued an aggressive global expansion policy. Messages between co-founder Travis Kalanick, who was Uber CEO until 2017, and his top executives reveal how the company secretly lobbied political leaders to relax labour and taxi laws, channeled money through Bermuda and other tax havens, exploited violence against drivers to their advantage and more.

Who is the ‘Uber whistleblower’?

On Monday, Mark MacGann, a former high-ranking Uber lobbyist, came forward to identify himself as the source who leaked more than 124,000 company files to The Guardian. The leak includes “emails, iMessages and WhatsApp exchanges between the Silicon Valley giant’s most senior executives.”

MacGann led Uber's expansion efforts in Europe, the Middle East and Africa between 2014 and 2016.

“I regret being part of a group of people which massaged the facts to earn the trust of drivers, of consumers and of political elites,” he told The Guardian in an exclusive interview.

Mark MacGann, a career lobbyist

At the age of 52, Mark MacGann is a lobbyist with a stellar career spanning nearly three decades.

Born in Ireland, MacGann received his BA (Hons) degree in Political Science, Economics and French from UK’s Kingston University. He went on to do his Master’s from the prestigious Sciences Po Grenoble in France.

MacGann worked at public policy firms such as Weber Shandwick, NYSE Euronext and Brunswick before joining Uber as Head of Public Policy for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in 2014. According to The Guardian, with an impressive network of contacts built up over two decades in the field of public policy, he was the “obvious pick” to lead Uber’s government relations in the EMEA region.

In February 2016, MacGann became a Senior Board Advisor at Uber, according to his LinkedIn profile.

More about the Uber Files

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a nonprofit network of investigative reporters, scoured internal Uber texts, emails, invoices and other documents to deliver what it called an unprecedented look into the ways Uber defied taxi laws and upended workers' rights.''

The documents were first leaked to the Brtiish newspaper The Guardian, which shared them with the consortium.

The investigation found that Uber used stealth technology to fend off government investigations. The company, for example, used a “kill switch” that cut access to Uber servers and blocked authorities from grabbing evidence during raids in at least six countries. During a police raid in Amsterdam, the Uber Files reported, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick personally issued an order: “Please hit the kill switch ASAP ... Access must be shut down in AMS (Amsterdam).''

(With inputs from Reuters)