Kyrsten Jones on balancing leadership and motherhood at Uber

Kyrsten Jones is a Phoenix-based Senior Program Leader for our Special Operations Projects Team (SPOT) focused on customer service and back-of-house processing. With a  ~190 member team, she’s a key advocate in developing the next wave of Uber leaders from hourly roles. Kyrsten is also a mom of two under three and a Global Co-Chair for our Parents at Uber employee resource group. 

📈 4 years later at Uber, Kyrsten’s role has evolved as the scope of her team has increased. But one thing has remained the same, her appreciation for the talented members of her team and the value they bring to Uber. 

When I first joined Uber, my role was to stand-up the SPOT program. SPOT had historically been a group of part-time contractors that primarily managed ad hoc projects related to risk and compliance. I helped craft the model that would bring this program in-house – determining headcount and budget, designing the full-time roles and their responsibilities, creating alignment with stakeholders. The team was approved for around 60 full-time headcount at the time. 

Over the last four years my role has evolved enormously as the scope of my team has increased. In 2020 the company was impacted with changes in staffing. Many processes that had been dispersed were then consolidated under my organization, and we shifted from a team that primarily managed ad hoc work to a team that owned ongoing processes aimed at keeping the company compliant to regulatory requirements in the US and Canada. This really changed the dynamic of how we do our work. We also became the go to team for standing up a number of new processes that just didn’t fit anywhere else. 

Our reputation for being a specialized but scrappy team continued to grow, and with it we created new roles within our organization. In the last two years we established a program management branch of our team, with over 30 junior project specialists, as well as a data analytics function that has seven individuals focused on using SQL, Python, and other languages to drive operational improvements for the team. As of late 2023, we have also now expanded our scope to be global, as opposed to just regional.

As of today our team is just under 200 people. Growing from 60 to 200 in four years has been a wild journey. We’re focused on execution, project management, and data analysis of processes related to regulatory compliance, identity fraud, and the incubation of new products within the Uber platform. Today my role is primarily working with Directors and operational leaders across the business to measure, improve, and drive risk, compliance, and operational changes, and everyone in SPOT plays a part in helping me tell the story and move the needle on our organizational goals.  

🌱 As a Global Co-Chair for Parents at Uber, her role is to set strategy and partner with regional leaders to drive a workplace that allows parents and caretakers to bring their best selves both to work and home. 

I joined the ERG around a year and a half ago, although my first role was as a Site Lead for our Phoenix location. I am really passionate about driving engaged teams and workplaces, and the Site Lead role was appealing because I would be able to do that for our entire office of ~600 versus just my team, which was around ~120 people at the time. I enjoyed partnering with our Employee Experience teams to create events that allowed our employees to engage with one another, as well as build community with other parents. Adjusting to life as a new parent can be hard, and I believe having a strong community can make a really positive impact on one’s ability to navigate that life stage.

When a role for Global Co-Chair came up, I thought this would be a great opportunity to merge my program management skills with my passion for creating a positive workplace environment. Additionally, I knew it would be a great opportunity for my own professional development, to work with new stakeholders and help set strategy on a global scale for a 30k+ employer.

Increasing engagement across the company is one of our big goals, but I am also very excited for us to continue to develop our partnership with the Product Equity Engineering team and our broader HR and Benefits teams. It will be an amazing opportunity to help drive and shape the direction of our company offerings to Earners, Riders, and Uber employees, being mindful of the experiences of our parents and caregivers. 

👥 While much of Kyrsten’s role is focused on driving an organization that meets regulatory deadlines, reduces risk, and increases safety on the platform, her favorite part of the job is actually around people strategy and engagement.

My organization consists of roles ranging from entry level to senior management. My favorite thing is developing people and seeing people promote or grow in their careers. Most of the managers on my team started with me in hourly roles, and a few are now within the senior management bucket! 

In 2020, my leadership team and I recognized that our staff were having challenges progressing to the next steps of their career, so we decided to launch our Talent Development Program. This is an in-house program that is designed to give people hands-on skills and experiences within their day jobs that will allow them to be successful in their interview process and next role. We have expanded the program significantly since 2020, and as of today it includes: a monthly guest speaker series, a community engagement branch that hosts engagement activities (trivia, yoga, mixers, etc), a data analytics training program that upskills staff into SQL, a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt program (60+ Yellow Belts certified!), a project management and people leadership upskilling program, and a community service branch (100+ volunteer hours from SPOT year-to-date!).

Additionally, Uber is a big believer in Driving your own growth. The company provides a fantastic array of opportunities that we also drive our team to leverage – short term assignments, Gigs (part-time projects outside of core role scope), resume and interview workshops, and more!

👶 Kyrsten’s taken two parental leaves at Uber and encourages expecting parents to start planning early. 

It is critical to identify those that you can trust to take care of deliverables, but also to provide all the tools necessary so that they can be successful. That may mean creating additional documentation on how you do a process or links to relevant resources, or it may mean adding them into meetings or email threads they may not have had visibility to previously. 

As someone who is very attached to my work, I can have a hard time disconnecting. Going into my parental leave knowing all of my work is in good hands removed an enormous weight off of my shoulders so that I could focus on what is most important – my growing family.

🙌 Spitting her parental leave benefit into two segments made all the difference. 

To be able to take 18 weeks of paid leave off to be with my children has been incredible. I don’t think much more needs to be said there. Two of the lesser known benefits that were really special to me were our Coterie congratulations basket and our Cleo access. 

We have a partnership with Coterie in the US, and new parents receive a very nice basket with diapers, a stuffed animal, and a note from our Cleo. Sure, the diapers go very quickly, but it is just a nice and intentional thing that Uber chooses to invest time and energy into providing. Uber also has a partnership with the app Cleo – it’s a free parenting app where you can get personalized advice from prenatal through age 18. The use cases are numerous.

🚀 Joining Uber has been the trip of a lifetime, with 3 major milestone stops along the way: getting engaged, married, and having two kids.

When I first started working at Uber in 2019, I did not consider at all how Uber’s policies, benefits, and opportunities for parents would be relevant – having kids was a far off idea at that point, after all. Being a mother now though, I feel really lucky to be at an employer that gives me the space, opportunity, and benefits to be the mother I want to be.

Being in tech, there is often this conception that you need to work 80 hours a week and focus all energy and time to the bottom line. Don’t get me wrong – there are certainly weeks when I have to put in more than usual, and periods where it can be high stress. But from what I’ve seen, the company overall has taken a stance on ensuring people can have balance and resources, and I do believe that allows people from all walks of life to work at Uber and bring innovation that drives us forward as a company.

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