Brief: Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg a leading candidate to run Uber, but she may decline

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Photo credit: World Economic Forum.

The news

• Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is at the top of Uber’s wish list to replace Travis Kalanick, who resigned from his post as Uber CEO on Tuesday. But Sandberg isn’t likely to leave Facebook, even though she’s well-suited to do at Uber “what she helped do at Facebook: bring the company out of its bro culture,” reports Bloomberg.
• Board member Arianna Huffington is said to be pushing for the appointment of Sandberg. Disney COO Tom Skaggs and former Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer are other leading candidates.

Why it matters

• The appointment of a woman as CEO could signal Uber’s seriousness about changing its sexist culture, which came under scathing criticism in a law firm’s investigation of sexual harassment charges made by former employee Susan Fowler. Uber is also facing a new lawsuit from a rape victim, whose private medical records were reported to have been accessed by Kalanick and other senior executives.
• A credible replacement could pave the way for the so-called “Uber 2.0” that Kalanick spoke of in his letter to employees while going on leave before board members asked him to quit.

See: Are you sexist and you don’t know it? Why you should ask yourself that if you’re in tech

Source: Bloomberg.