Below is an announcement sent by CEO Dara Khosrowshahi to Uber employees around the world, welcoming Barney Harford as Uber’s new Chief Operating Officer. In this role, Barney will oversee Uber’s global operations, marketing and customer support teams for our ridesharing and delivery businesses.

Team –

I’m happy to announce that Barney Harford will be joining Uber as Chief Operating Officer, starting January 2.

Barney is the former CEO of Orbitz. He has deep experience building and managing two-sided marketplaces and has served as an advisor to Uber since October, so you may have already seen him around. He’s spent the last few months learning how Uber works and developing perspectives on how it can work even better in the future, so he’ll hit the ground running in January.

I have never met a stronger operator or a more thoughtful strategist than Barney. He is able to go deep on key aspects of a business while never losing sight of the big strategic picture. He loves engaging with operations, marketing, product, and engineering teams around hard problems, and is passionate about using technology to transform the world.

Barney came to the US from the UK in 1999 to work at Expedia when it was still part of Microsoft. We worked together after I joined as Expedia as CEO, and he was leading the company’s push into Asia. In 2009 he joined Orbitz and went on to turn that company into such a success that I just had to acquire it! 🙂

Barney will continue to serve on the boards of United Airlines and RealSelf, where he is chairman.

Barney enjoys skiing, surfing, and photography, and loves classical music. He and his wife Beth Birnbaum have two kids.

Please join me in welcoming Barney to the team!

Dara