On Sunday, multiple media reports said that Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of online travel agency Expedia, was slated to succeed Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick as the company’s CEO.
Though his candidacy had been little known to the wider public, Khosrowshahi appears to have outpaced other higher-profile contenders for the top job at the embattled ridesharing firm, which has been leaderless since Kalanick’s ouster in June.
The 48-year-old Iranian-American was the highest-paid chief executive of a U.S. tech company in 2016, having enjoyed an 881% pay raise. His 2015 pay of $94.1 million consists of $90.8 million in stock options, awarded in return for an agreement that he would stay with Expedia until September 2020.
As Fortune reported in 2016, Khosrowshahi’s 2015 pay was about 4,756 times that of his team at Expedia, which he has led ever since its spinoff from IAC in 2005. Both the company’s business and stock price have enjoyed healthy growth under his leadership.
Born in Tehran, Khosrowshahi moved with his family to the U.S. amid revolutionary turmoil in Iran when he was nine, settling in New York state. Apart from his role in Expedia, he also sits on the board of the New York Times Company.
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