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Uber picks up former Google, Facebook execs to speed up company growth

The on-demand car service could be on track toward an IPO now that it has a CFO onboard.
Written by Rachel King, Contributor
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Uber, arguably the leader in the ride-sharing service that brought the town car to the masses, is rounding out its leadership team.

The San Francisco-based startup has picked up a trio of seasoned executives from some of Silicon Valley's best known businesses: Google, Facebook, and Klout.

Leading off is Brent Callinicos, who has been hired as Uber's first chief financial officer.

Callinicos, who most recently served as vice president, treasurer and chief acountant at Google, will start at Uber on September 9.

The hiring of Callinicos is also sparking more speculation that the on-demand car service could be on track toward an IPO now that it has a CFO onboard.

Callinicos will be joined by previous Klout chief operating officer Emil Michael and Ed Baker, previously head of international growth at Facebook as well as co-founder and CEO of friend.ly.

Michael has been enlisted to serve as senior vice president of business at Uber, while Baker has been hired as head of growth.

Both Michael and Baker start immediately.

The timing probably couldn't be better -- or more urgent.

Uber was said to be worth approximately $3.5 billion as of mid-August following investments of $88 million made by private equity giant TPG and another $250 million from Google Ventures.

Although the company has scaled to serve more than 35 cities worldwide since launching in 2009, Uber's C-level tier has been quite small up until now, comprised of just a handful of people -- including founder and CEO Travis Kalanick.

Image via Uber

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