Uber Hires Pepsi’s General Counsel Tony West As Chief Legal Officer

Uber Technologies Inc., in a report made an announcement of its plans to hire a new chief legal officer that will guide the company during it many legal quandaries and if possible help them win cases in court.

Filling this crucial but yet important vacancy is a well know personality with a high profile reputation in the person of Tony West who will join the company starting from next month, he will be joining from PepsiCo Inc. Where he was the general counsel of the company in which he led a team of lawyers across more than 200 countries. West was also a former federal prosecutor and a senior official in the US Department of Justice at that time under the former President Barack Obama.

West is the first important hire by the company for Khosrowshahi, who was brought on board in September to replace former CEO Travis Kalanick was pressured by a long list of investors to resign due to a series of the company controversies. In an email wrote by the present CEO Dara Khosrowshahi which was seen by Reuters, he explained that Tony is exactly what the company needs to bounce back and contend with a whole number of criminal probes and also against one of the biggest legal battles playing out in Silicon Valley this year against Uber from Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company) self-driving car unit known as Waymo.

Salle Yoo, who formerly held Uber’s top legal job, but in coming weeks will be departing the company , last week when asked she said she will leave the company when the newly hired legal counsel was hired. For now, there are many other vacancies the company has such as the post of chief financial officer (CFO) but for now one of the most important post is that of the general counsel for the company because of the long list of legal battles the company will have to encounter in the coming months.