who was (and was not) at the opening bell – TechCrunch

Uber finally made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, ending its ten-year track record from start-up to publicly traded company.

So far, the beginning of the shares at the opening of the shares at $ 42 was lower than that of the IPO. The price of the action oscillates a little less than $ 44.

Thirteen people, including executives, employees, drivers and customers, were on the balcony to witness the historic bell ringing which opened the markets on Friday. The notable absentees were the co-founder Garrett Camp and former CEO and co-founder, Travis Kalanick, who was ousted from the company in June 2017 after a series of scandals surrounding Uber's business practices.

Kalanick, who still sits on the board and holds 8.6% of Uber's capital, did not attend the opening ceremony of the bells. Kalanick and Camp were both at the NYSE for the event.

Here is who participated in the ceremony of opening the bell.

The ring

Austin Geidt, who rang, was the number four employee when she started as a trainee in 2010. one of the first employees of Uber.

Geidt joined Uber in 2010 and has since held numerous positions within the company. She led Uber's expansion into hundreds of new cities and dozens of new countries. Geidt is now leading the strategy for Uber's Advanced Technologies Group, the unit working on autonomous vehicles.

managerial staff

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Geidt next stood at the market opening on Friday. Khosrowshahi joined Uber in 2017 after Kalanick's resignation and the board of directors launched a broad executive search likely to change the company's culture and prepare it for a possible IPO.

Khosrowshahi was the CEO of Expedia before joining Uber. Khosrowshahi gave a record of one year of his time at Uber during TechCrunch Disrupt in September 2018.

Uber CTO Thuan Pham has been with the company since 2013. Before coming to Uber, Pham was vice president of engineering at VMWare.

Rachel Holt, Vice President and Head of New Mobility, was also present. Holt has been working at Uber since October 2011, while the company lived in just three cities. In May 2016, she became Vice President and Regional General Manager of Uber's operations in the United States and Canada.

She was promoted to the head of the new mobility in June 2018. She is responsible for ramping up and integrating additional mobility services, including the integration of public transit, scooters, car rental and bicycles.

Pierre-Dmitry Gore-Coty and Andrew MacDonald, both vice-presidents and regional general directors of Uber, as well as Jason Droege, vice president at the head of Uber Eats.

Droege, who joined Uber in 2014, is officially head of UberEverything. It is the team that created the Uber Eats food delivery service in 35 countries.

Drivers

Uber had five pilots on hand for the opening bell, who represented different services and geographical areas.

Among the pilots were:

• Jerry Bruner, a Los Angeles-based driver who is a veteran and former professional golfer. Bruner has made more than 30,000 Uber trips.
• Tiffany Hanna, a veteran, is based in Springfield, Missouri. Hanna is a truck driver who uses the Uber Freight carrier application.
• Jonelle Bain, a New York-based driver. Uber, who shared the pilots' biography, said that Bain is taking coding classes and plans to become a software engineer.
• Onur Kerey is a London based driver. Kerey is deaf. According to his bio, "he does not let his disability affect his passion for driving or connecting with others. "
• J. Alexander Palacio Sanchez is based in Australia and has been driving with Uber since 2015. His real passion is to act, according to Uber, and at the request of his riders he auditioned for the role of Kevin in Heights一and landed.

Customers

A client, Elise Wu, also participated in the opening bell. Wu owns Kampai, a family of restaurants in France that serves affordable cuisine prepared to be delivered via Uber Eats.