Valerie Jarrett, former advisor to Obama joins Lyft Board

lyft, on Monday, announced that Valerie Jarrett, the former senior advisor to Obama would be joining the company Board Of Directors. With Valerie joining the board, the number of directors in the panel is now increased to nine from eight. One of the Lyft spokeswomen said that Valerie will be joining the board as an independent director and will continue to focus on the issues related to urban transportation. It should be noted that Jarrett earlier served as a commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development before serving the White House for eight years.

What does Jarrett say about joining Lyft?

Los Angeles Times reported that Jarrett said, “I am very much excited about joining Lyft as I am highly inspired by the solid community built by John (Zimmer) and Logan (Green), the founders of Lyft. We believe that by creating a strong and reliable transportation, we can tend to improve the quality of living and social mobility in those places which are more crowded. I am also a frequent Lyft traveler.”

Los Angeles Times reported that Logan on welcoming Jarrett said, “Jarrett is a great person to work with, and we will continue to improve the mobility through transportation and thereby bring a positive change to our cities.

We are more excited about welcoming her to Lyft.”

Where does Jarrett serve before joining Lyft?

Valerie Jarrett is the longest serving advisor in Obama’s presidency. She acceded to the Board of Directors in Chicago Ariel investments as soon as she left the White House in January. She also served as an advisor to Obama foundation after she left White House.

Apart from Jarrett, other members of Obama’s team were also appointed in some of the world’s best companies.

Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe was appointed to head Uber policy in 2014 which he later resigned to lead the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization founded by the chief executive of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Similarly, Eric H. Holder Jr. former Attorney General has been appointed to lead an investigation related to Uber corporate culture.

Lyft, in one of their recent blog post, has reported that they have given more rides this year when compared to all of 2016. Despite this enormous number, Uber remains the industry giant with around $70 billion valuation which is almost ten times that of Lyft.

As per Lyft, Valerie Jarrett is the first Board Member without a significant share in the company. The other members of the council of Lyft are Green and Zimmer, Andreessen Horowitz, Ben Horowitz, Dan Ammann, Jonathan Christodoro, Sean Aggarwal, Hiroshi Mikitani, and Ann Miura-Ko.