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Will McCollum, General Manager for Uber Denver, knows that being escorted around like an ambassador doesn’t come without hard work. A CU graduate, McCollum said he wanted to originally work in green energy and “change the world.” Today, he is doing that in his own way by leading policy changes to initiating innovative new-user acquisition strategies, essentially helping change the way people get around the world.
“No one in the world would have thought that the transportation sector would be so exciting,” McCollum said. “It’s not the product, as long as you're working with innovative people. People make the company.”
McCollum said Uber gives its employees the freedom and ability to try new things, like running new campaigns: “Last year, we started a campaign called ‘#UberEverywhere’ which stemmed from removing the idea of Uber as a novelty, and making it’s a part of people’s lives. Uber as a verb, in essence.”
Although part of McCollum’s job is to run these innovative campaigns, another part is to deal with regulatory issues that Uber has been dealing with lately; these are a little less “fun” to deal with surely, but McCollum has found a bright way to look at it.
“Regulatory challenges cropped up and gave us access to the media,” McCollum said. “Fighting our way through regulatory framework to keep our right for UberX and ride-sharing. However, regulatory challenges are one way we actually have been able to reach new customers.”
Now that legislation has cleared for UberX in Colorado, McCollum said he feels that Uber has contributed and is “a part of the progress” overall. Now, it’s a matter of growing Uber as a company and hitting high growth numbers: “We’ve been incubated into the point to where we need a bigger space- which proves that the tech, coworking space is not an anomaly and its real and substantive. We’re moving into a new office and expanding.”
Ultimately, McCollum’s job is about providing a service that people enjoy and that they need: “If we’re not in a city, people are surprised. It’s almost like people are expecting us to be there for them.”
