Uber would have you believe it has turned over a new leaf after sexual harassment allegations threw it into turmoil and blackened its reputation in early 2017.
Former CEO Travis Kalanick was shown the door. His replacement, Dara Khosrowshahi, noted earlier this year that 2017 was “really tough” but that the changes prompted by the events that year would make Uber “a better company,” The New Yorker reported.
One of Khosrowshahi’s chief problems after arriving at the San Francisco ride-hailing giant was Cameron Poetzscher, head of corporate development, according to a new report. Poetzscher had been found by an outside law firm to have engaged in “a pattern of making sexually suggestive comments about other co-workers, including describing which ones he would like to sleep with,” the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
Poetzscher, in his private life, has also been accused of sexual harassment. In 2015, a nanny for Poetzscher and his partner claimed in a lawsuit that he had sexually harassed her repeatedly, walking around naked in front of her, asking for massages, making sexual innuendos and at least once, masturbating in front of her. The nanny also alleged that the couple had underpaid her. Poetzscher and his partner settled with the nanny later that year, with the couple not admitting to any wrongdoing, court records show.
At Uber, in addition to making suggestive comments, Poetzscher had a consensual affair with a colleague, violating company policy because he took part in her annual review, the Journal reported, based on unnamed people said to be familiar with the investigation.
Poetzscher was an important player in the company, overseeing “some of Uber’s biggest deals, including a negotiation to sell a stake in the ride-hailing company to SoftBank Group Corp. for billions of dollars,” according to the paper.
After the law firm reported on Poetzscher’s behavior, some members of an Uber internal panel called for his head, the paper reported. But Uber’s leadership elected to give him a formal warning, cut his annual bonus and put him through sensitivity training, according to the paper.
Then, after a number of months, Poetzscher was promoted to acting head of finance, reporting to Khosrowshahi, according to the paper. The company has since hired a new chief financial officer who is now Poetzscher’s superior.
Poetzscher told the paper in a statement that Uber was right to discipline him, according to the Journal. “I deeply regret and have learned from this error in judgment, and I am proud of how hard everyone at Uber is working to ensure our company is a positive, respectful, and inspiring place to work,” Poetzscher said.
An Uber spokesman told the Journal that Poetzscher’s behavior at the company had been fully investigated by the outside law firm, and that “appropriate actions were taken as a result.”
