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Three years after taking charge of Uber’s India operations, Amit Jain has been rewarded by the cab hailing company by elevating him to drive growth in the Asia Pacific region. While Jain will continue to manage India operations, he will also be responsible for Uber’s business in Australia, New Zealand, North Asia and South Asia.
“Amit Jain, currently, President of Uber India and South Asia will be stepping up to lead our ridesharing operations as the new Regional General Manager, APAC,” said an Uber spokesperson
Jain brings over two decades of leadership and operational experience from Silicon Valley and has been instrumental in shaping Uber’s success in India.
Commenting on his elevation, Jain said, “ I am really excited to be stepping up to lead Uber's ridesharing operations in APAC. We have amazing people doing phenomenal work, here at Uber, and I am excited to work with them to grow and expand our business in APAC. We will remain committed offer the best ride experiences to our riders, creating sustainable economic opportunities for our driver partners, and redefining the future of urban mobility in our cities across the region.”
Jain’s stint as the India head of Uber operations has been focussed on a localisation strategy where he has brought in a lot of innovation aimed at Indian users. For example, Indian riders were the first to be allowed to pay for rides by cash instead of credit cards or mobile wallets. Uber also launched a rider safety programme, which was again unique to India. But there have been huge challenges too. Jain’s appointment as the India head in 2015 was done a few months after a woman rider was raped by a Uber driver in December 2014. Jain also had to deal with regulatory headwinds with a number of Indian states threatening to ban Uber following protests by local taxi drivers.
“Recently, there have been rumours of a possible merger between Uber’s India operations and Ola but Jain, who is otherwise soft-spoken, has not allowed these distractions to come in the way of the company’s growth in this market,” said a former Uber executive.
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