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Uber Marketing People on the Move

Uber raids Google (again) for European marketing boss

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By Jennifer Faull | Deputy Editor

January 22, 2020 | 4 min read

Uber has hired Google’s marketing boss for Northern Europe, David Mogensen, to lead its European marketing. It’s the latest major hire for the company following a round of cuts to the global marketing department last year.

David

Google's David Mogensen joins Uber

Mogensen replaces Patrick Stal, who departed this company earlier this month following two and a half years’ service. Stal, who is not thought to have another role to go to, said that the time had come to depart but he would continue “cheering [Uber] on from the sidelines […] Perhaps louder than ever.”

"After 2.5 years I have decided to take a break before finding, or founding, the next adventure," he said. "I am incredibly proud of the teams we built and proving a marketing function with strong in-house strategy, performance marketing, CRM, creative, research, analytics, social, content and regional marketing teams can drive exponential growth for five businesses across 40 countries with local relevance."

His successor has spent 20 years in the industry, most recently as the lead marketing for Google in Northern Europe where he’s taken charge of launching products including Google Home, Google Assistant and YouTube Kids. Before Google, Mogensen spent a decade at BMW in North America, where he oversaw the car marque’s US advertising.

The hire comes after a challenging period for the company.

Last August, it was forced to make a massive round of layoffs that saw roughly one-third of its marketing roles – 400, to be precise – made redundant.

At the time, boss Dara Khosrowshahi said that it while it had “grown fast, we've slowed down [...] So, put simply, we need to get our edge back.”

Redundancies were made globally and affected all manner of employees, from new recruits to those with decades of experience, with job titles ranging from marketing manager and copywriter to CRM coordinator.

An early casualty was global marketing boss Rebecca Messina, who departed in June – shortly before the redundancy round was announced – along with its global director of marketing for Uber Freight and the North American head of social for Uber Eats.

However, amid the streamlining of the global marketing team it has also made a number of significant hires at the top level, of which Mogensen is the latest.

In August, it hired another Google veteran in Thomas Ranese as vice-president of global marketing. Just a few months later, YouTube’s product marketing boss Lucinda Barlow was poached to lead marketing for Uber in Asia Pacific.

Mogensen will likely work closely with Melinda Roylett, who was brought on board last year from Square to head up Uber’s UK and Ireland operations, which have been under a spotlight since its licence to operate private hire cars was revoked in London.

Chief exec Khosrowshahi reportedly met with Mike Brown, the commissioner for Transport for London, this week in an attempt resolve the issues that regulators have with the ride-hailing platform.

Uber Marketing People on the Move

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