Ride-hailing platform Lyft Inc. on Friday said that Mary Agnes Wilderotter and Valerie Jarrett had resigned from the company’s board, due to what it described as “their other professional responsibilities.”
Lyft
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said in a filing that the two notified the company of their resignations on Thursday, adding that “neither Ms. Wilderotter nor Ms. Jarrett resigned from the Board due to any disagreement with the Company on any matter related to the Company’s operations, policies or practices.”
In connection with the departures, Lyft’s board appointed Prashant Aggarwal as chair of the nominating and corporate governance committee, and appointed Janey Whiteside as a member of that committee. The board has also lowered the number of authorized directors to eight from 10.
Shares of Lyft were up 0.1% in after-hours trading on Friday. The company, when reached, declined to offer any extra information beyond what was in the filing.
The Securities and Exchange commission last month said that Lyft agreed to pay a $10 million fine to resolve allegations from the agency that it failed to disclose that one of its former board members was paid to arrange a pre-IPO share sale between billionaire investors Carl Icahn and George Soros.
Earlier this year, Lyft brought in a new chief executive, David Risher, a onetime board member who replaced co-founder Logan Green. The company, in announcing the move in March, said that Green and co-founder John Zimmer would step back from actively running the company, while staying on Lyft’s board. Even as ride-hailing recovers from the pandemic, and Lyft tries to compete on pricing, investors have been kinder to shares of Lyft’s bigger rival, Uber Technologies Inc.
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In a statement on Friday, both board members praised the company.
Wilderotter called her time on the Lyft board “fulfilling” and said she had “full confidence that the team is on the right track.” Jarrett said: “I’m proud to have been part of a company that’s already made such a positive impact and I’ll be rooting for the company from the backseat of my Lyft.”
Risher, in that statement, said Wilderotter’s and Jarrett’s “strategic insights and relentless focus to do what’s right for riders and drivers have helped position Lyft well for the future. Moving forward, I’m excited about the Board’s ongoing succession planning and focus on ensuring that we have the right skills, experience and diversity around the table.”
Shares of Lyft have fallen 9% so far this year. By comparison, the S&P 500 Index
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is up 13.1% over that period.
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