Uber brings on Target CMO to fix its brand, unseating cofounder Ryan Graves in the process

Reuters/Robert Galbraith

Uber is shaking up its leadership by bringing in Target Chief Marketing Officer, Jeff Jones, as president of its ridesharing operations.

It's a big hire precipitated by Uber's need to make sure its top-level marketing is working on a city-by-city level. 

"Our vision is simple: to redefine how a large operations effort can be tightly integrated with a customer-obsessed marketing strategy," Uber CEO Travis Kalanick wrote in the announcement. 

To make that change, Kalanick laid out a two-pronged approach. The first was to "rewire city efforts so that they tightly integrate with branding, marketing initiatives and strategy."

Uber's sprawling network of autonomous city outposts once helped the ride-sharing company expand at a record pace, upending the entire taxi industry and bolstering a $69 billion valuation. But the free rein that Uber was a double-edged sword.

Uber has been taking steps to impose more adult supervision while trying not to kill the magic formula behind its success. Uber told Business Insider in June that it was putting up more “guardrails,” including exerting more centralized control on its messaging, bolstering communications between local offices and adding more oversight where necessary.

The second part of that approach is leadership in overseeing that the changes ripple to all of its markets flung across the globe. That's where Jones' experience building a brand like Target comes in.

B minus performance

According to Fortune, Kalanick and Jones started talking after Jones wanted to join the board of the company. Kalanick had just delivered a TED talk, which Jones critically gave him a B- for his performance since he didn't focus on the positives of Uber. Six months later, Jones will be now in charge of fixing Uber's flawed storytelling.

With Tuesday's announcement, Jones will now be in charge of all of Uber's operations, marketing, and customer support around the globe under the role of president.

Jones' hire does unseat Uber cofounder Ryan Graves from his dominant leadership position within the company. Graves, who was Uber's first CEO, had previously overseen all of Uber's operations, but will now focus on UberEverything and its people operations. 

"Ryan is the progenitor of everything Uber Operations—setting the gold standard for what it means to run a truly great operations team in the on-demand world. But as we grow, marketing is becoming more and more of a thing, and it was clear we needed a real infusion of talent on that front. So we went big," Kalanick said. 

Uber, though, has a very spotty track record on bringing in "big" outside talent. Its former head of customer support, Tim Collins, joined Uber from Amazon — only to depart shortly after. Uber's CFO hire, Google veteran Brett Callinicos, also left after a few months. Former Obama communications head, David Plouffe, joined Uber and then became more of an advisor to the company after Rachel Whetstone was hired. 

NOW WATCH: The world's first self-driving taxis are now available in Singapore