This week we had the pleasure of interviewing Felipe Fernández de Aramburu, General Manager of Uber Spain and Portugal.

Can you tell us briefly about your professional career and your role in the company?

I started my studies at the University of San Andrés in Buenos Aires and then pursued postgraduate studies in finance at ESCP Business School and graduated from The Wharton School after completing my MBA. Before joining Uber, my previous experiences in consulting, retail, finance, investment banking, and marketing at companies such as McKinsey and Deutsche Bank helped me develop extensive professional experience with strong management and leadership skills.

In 2016, I joined Uber with the goal of building the company's operations in Argentina and helping to make it one of Uber's fastest-growing countries in the world. Later, I became the general manager of the company for the Southern Cone region, leading operations in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Since September 2022, I have been the general manager of Uber in Iberia, overseeing the growth and profitability of the Spanish and Portuguese markets. I am passionate about technology and innovative organizations, always focused on achieving sustained business growth.

What is Uber's mission and vision? How do you define yourselves as a company?

We work for the mobility of the cities of the future. A mobility based on a multimodal model, in which the user can make use of a wide variety of transport alternatives, including VTC and taxis, micromobility options such as electric bicycles and scooters, and of course, public transport services such as the metro, bus, and commuter train. Through the combination of all these alternatives, we will move towards the elimination of private cars, while contributing to the development of more sustainable cities with reliable, safe, and environmentally friendly mobility.

What is the differential element or the one you are most proud of at Uber?

The fact that we are the leading mobility platform worldwide, with a presence in more than 10,000 cities and 70 countries, combined with the fact that we work with almost 900,000 partners on the delivery side, makes us a unique company. Additionally, our technology and our special attention to safety and sustainability differentiate us from the competition. Taking all these factors into account and with the idea of maximizing the power of our platform by offering our users all the advantages of both businesses, at the end of 2022, we launched Uber One in Spain, a subscription program that offers discounts and exclusive advantages to consumers, both on Uber rides and on food deliveries and grocery shopping on Uber Eats.

What role does sustainability play in the company you represent?

Undoubtedly, the biggest challenge we face is becoming a zero-emission platform in all the markets where we operate worldwide. To achieve this goal, in September 2020, we presented our sustainability strategic plan and our global commitment to becoming a zero-emission mobility platform by 2040 in the 10,000 cities and six continents where we operate. To reach this goal, our objective is that 100% of trips will be made in zero-emission vehicles, public transport, and micro-mobility throughout our platform on a global scale.

As part of this commitment, in January 2022, we launched Uber Green in Madrid, the 100% electric mobility service of Uber that allows platform users to travel in zero-emission vehicles at the same price as Uber's most popular product worldwide, UberX. In addition to launching Uber Green, we also announced agreements with two of the largest Spanish companies to promote the electrification of the taxi and VTC sectors: we closed an agreement with Repsol to offer taxi and VTC drivers who work with our platform a discount of up to 21% at Repsol's 77 public charging stations, in order to overcome the obstacle of easy and affordable access to electric charging stations. On the other hand, we partnered with Santander to offer special financial conditions for the acquisition of electric vehicles for taxi and VTC drivers who work with Uber in Spain. At the end of 2022, we announced our agreement with Wallbox to support drivers in transitioning to electric cars, providing them with discounts for the purchase of home chargers. In parallel, in March 2021 and September 2022, we integrated public transport information for Barcelona and Madrid, respectively, into our application, allowing users to check the best route to their destination and taking a step further in our goal of discouraging the use of private vehicles in order to reduce pollution in cities. Globally, we have integrated public transport information in 50 cities around the world, including London, Sydney, Paris, Mexico City, San Francisco, New York, Delhi, Lisbon, Rome, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Berlin, and now Madrid. Additionally, in ten cities, including Las Vegas, Denver, and Cleveland in the United States, as well as London in Europe, we have gone one step further, allowing users to purchase their train, bus, ferry, tram, or metro tickets directly through the Uber app.

Why did you choose to partner with AmChamSpain?

The decision to join AmChamSpain is motivated by several factors. The first is the great relevance and prestige of AmCham as an institution at the international level, which we consider contributes very positively to the perception of the Uber brand as an international company that presents a key commitment to Spain. Secondly, as a company from North America, we consider that AmCham is the Chamber of Commerce that best represents the interests of American-origin companies. Lastly, because we are already strategic partners of this institution in almost all the countries where we operate in the world.