According to Recode, Frances Frei, hired to fix Uber’s broken culture and help controversial company CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick on the proper path, is officially leaving the company. Now, Frei will be working on a new leadership development program for different companies, aimed at women and underrepresented minorities, before making her return to Harvard Business School.
While I’m sure she worked really hard at Uber, trying her best to steer leaders and others in the right direction, her leave basically tells us that her work has had impact seeing as Kalanick is ousted and there are more experienced executives in place now. Needless to say, she also probably got some pretty good examples while working at Uber, which allegedly had Silicon Valley’s most toxic culture.
“When I got here, my goal was to train and teach executives how to manage better, but it became super apparent that the training needed to go way beyond that,” Frei said in an interview today. “As soon as the executive team was calmer, I turned my attention to 3,000 managers whose jobs grew well beyond their skills, which I think was the real work.”
While working at Uber, she said that she worked with over 6,000 employees, who had participated in the Harvard executive education program she created. Now that Uber has better trained executives in place, there’s not much need for a high-profile academic to coach staff, so she’s essentially taking her leave. She will, however, remain with Uber as an advisor and will teach the Harvard program to staff.
