The people involved in it all—from business strategy, to marketing, to legal, and everything in between—are Uber’s General Managers. They move at warp speed, rallying teams around the most important things, acting with hustle, heart, and a healthy competitive spirit to bring everyone to their personal best. Below we chat with Saskia de Jongh, our Regional General Manager for Uber Eats across all of Asia Pacific, about her role, how she prioritizes, and why you should join the team too.
You’ve been at Uber for almost 2 years. How has your role evolved?
“People told me that Uber is a fast-moving company and I learned first hand that this is absolutely true! I joined as the Uber Eats lead for APAC Community Operations, which provides customer support for our eaters, earners and restaurants. We cover a broad scope ranging from handling safety incidents, menu uploads, document checks and answering questions by phone, mail and chat. When I joined Uber, Uber Eats was much smaller than Ridesharing and we had to figure out all the new processes. After one year in the role, Rides support was added to my scope and since May this year I have been the Regional General Manager for APAC Uber Eats.”
Tell us about your role today.
“I am responsible for the overall results of our Uber Eats business in APAC, which has a very broad scope. In one day I can have meetings about our next marketing campaign, budget, team morale, and product asks. I work closely with the General Managers of our markets and we also have a regional team focused on Strategy & Planning and Product. On top of that, I work closely with our cross-functional teams, including my former colleagues in Community Operations. While the focus of my role is on APAC, my manager is based in Amsterdam and I also meet regularly with teams around the world. For now all is virtual, but hopefully I will have the opportunity to meet them in person soon!”
What excites you about the work you do?
“I absolutely love my role. It’s a fast paced and numbers driven environment that challenges me every day. I am absolutely impressed by the talent at Uber. I am usually not the smartest person in the room! I like the “get shit done” mentality and have seen things move from idea to implementation in a week–something I never experienced in companies I worked at before. There is an optimism about how we can change the world and do new things that I absolutely enjoy. While this means you have to be on your toes most of the time, I also value the fact I can take time off when I need it with our generous leave policy and flexible home-office attitude.”
What are the most interesting challenges you need to solve?
“In my role I have to balance growth and profitability, country A versus country B, and it’s all about trade-offs. I enjoy the process of collecting different opinions and defining principles for decision making. The other important challenge is our people: how do you attract the best talent, motivate teams and remove roadblocks? My role is about providing clear guidance, direction, and sharing information between HQ in SF to the region and back.”
Why join the Uber Eats team now?
“While we started with a focus on restaurants, we are now expanding to supermarkets, flower shops, your local microbrewery and much more. We are building a loyalty platform with our Uber Eats Pass and making improvements to our app everyday. We are on a mission to build the best local commerce in every city delivered to you in the next hour. If you join our team, you are part of this journey and will be able to help define the outcome. In my view that’s really exciting!”
Posted by Philip Graumann
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