Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber Chief Executive Who Took the Company Public and Into Profit

Dara Khosrowshahi is the chief executive officer of Uber, the ride-hailing and delivery company. He took over in September 2017 after twelve years running the online travel group Expedia, and he also sits on Uber’s board.

Under his leadership Uber went public, turned its first full-year operating profit and grew into a business with more than $52 billion in annual revenue. He now steers the company through a shift towards self-driving cars, which Uber offers through partners rather than building itself.

Education

Khosrowshahi holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Brown University, according to his official Uber biography. Uber notes that his background spans both engineering and finance.

Career

He began his career in finance. From 1991 to 1998 he worked at Allen and Company, the New York investment bank, where he became a vice president in 1995.

In 1998 he moved to the media and internet group then known as IAC/InterActiveCorp. He served there as executive vice president for operations and strategic planning from 2000 to 2002, and then as executive vice president and chief financial officer from 2002 to 2005.

During those years IAC bought Expedia and built up a group of travel brands. In January 2005 Khosrowshahi became chief executive of IAC Travel, the division that held them, a post he kept until August 2005.

When IAC spun off Expedia as a separate company in 2005, he became its president and chief executive. He led Expedia until 2017, a period in which, according to Uber’s biography, the company made several acquisitions and invested heavily in mobile, which came to account for more than half of its traffic.

The company he joined had a short history. Uber says it was founded in 2009, incorporated as Ubercab in July 2010 and renamed Uber Technologies in February 2011.

Uber chose him as chief executive in 2017. He succeeded co-founder Travis Kalanick and joined Uber and its board in September of that year.

His first years were spent preparing the company for the stock market. Uber priced its initial public offering on 9 May 2019 at $45 a share, selling 180 million shares, and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange the next day under the symbol UBER.

He then reshaped the business. Uber completed its $3.1 billion purchase of Careem in January 2020, adding the regional company’s ride-hailing, delivery and payments businesses across the wider Middle East, with major markets including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

In 2020 Uber also sold its self-driving research unit to Aurora and moved to partnerships with companies that build autonomous vehicles. Khosrowshahi later served on Aurora’s board from 2021 to 2024.

Both of Uber’s main businesses have kept growing. In 2025, on a constant currency basis, mobility gross bookings rose 19% and delivery gross bookings rose 22%, the company said in its annual report.

The pace held into 2026. In the second quarter of 2026 trips rose 18% to 3.9 billion, gross bookings rose 24% to $58.0 billion and revenue grew 12% to $14.2 billion, while income from operations climbed 30% to $1.9 billion.

Self-driving cars are now a central part of his plan. Presenting those results on 5 August 2026, he said Uber was working to build what he called the largest platform for autonomous vehicles in the world.

Current Roles

• Chief Executive Officer, Uber Technologies (since September 2017)
• Member of the Board of Directors, Uber Technologies (since September 2017)
• Member of the Board of Directors, Expedia Group
• Member of the Board of Directors, Grab Holdings
• Board member, Catalyst

Earlier boards include TripAdvisor from 2011 to 2013, The New York Times Company from 2015 to 2017, the supervisory board of trivago from 2016 to 2017 and Aurora Innovation from 2021 to 2024, according to Uber’s 2026 proxy statement.

Key Achievements

Taking Uber public

Khosrowshahi led Uber through its 2019 listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The company sold 180 million shares at $45 each, and the stock began trading on 10 May 2019.

From losses to profit

For 2023, the Associated Press reported, it earned net income of $1.89 billion on revenue of $37.28 billion, its first annual profit since going public, and by 2025 income from operations had reached $5.6 billion.

• Revenue 2024: $44.0 billion
• Revenue 2025: $52.0 billion
• Income from operations 2024: $2.8 billion
• Income from operations 2025: $5.6 billion

Investment grade and share buybacks

In February 2026, when announcing a change of chief financial officer, Khosrowshahi credited the outgoing finance chief with helping Uber reach investment-grade status and with leading the company’s first share repurchase programme.

Expanding in the Middle East

The Careem deal gave Uber a large business in the region, including Saudi Arabia, while keeping the Careem brand and its own management. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had already invested $3.5 billion in Uber in 2016.

Partnering on self-driving cars

Instead of building its own robotaxis, Uber now works with outside developers. In March 2025 riders in Austin, Texas, began to be matched with fully autonomous Waymo cars through the Uber app, under a partnership the two companies started in 2022.

The Company in Numbers

• Revenue: $52.0 billion (2025)
• Gross bookings: $193.5 billion (2025)
• Trips: about 13.6 billion (2025)
• Monthly active platform consumers: 202 million (fourth quarter of 2025)
• Uber One members: 46 million (31 December 2025)
• Employees: about 34,000 (31 December 2025)
• Reach: more than 70 countries and over 15,000 cities (2025)

Competition in ride-hailing in the Kingdom has also widened, as shown by inDrive’s licence to operate in Saudi Arabia.

Awards and Honours

• Named among Glassdoor’s Highest Rated CEOs while leading Expedia, according to Uber

In Their Own Words

Presenting Uber’s results on 7 February 2024, Khosrowshahi said in prepared remarks: “2023 was an inflection point for Uber.”

In the second-quarter results statement of 5 August 2026, he said: “Uber’s platform advantage continues to compound: record consumers and engagement, and profitable growth across our business.”

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