Uber hires Lottie Dominiczak as UK communications chief

Uber’s new UK comms chief
Lottie Dominiczak.
Inclusion
CESI/YouTube

• Uber has hired Lottie Dominiczak as its new UK
  communications chief.
• Dominiczak is an experienced former politico, having
  worked as a special adviser to the Department of Digital,
  Culture, Media and Sport.
• While there, she worked with Culture Secretary Matt
  Hancock, who once admitted he hadn’t heard of Uber until black
  cab drivers protested the app outside Parliament.
• Dominiczak is part of a bigger trend of former
  politicos joining tech companies as they navigate difficult
  issues around societal impact, the gig economy, and
  tax.

Uber has bulked out its communications team in the UK with a new
hire — ex-politico Lottie Dominiczak.

Dominiczak will join Uber late this month as UK communications
chief after incumbent Alex Belardinelli was promoted to head of
comms for northern and eastern Europe. She joins after the
departure of Harry Porter, Uber’s senior communications lead, who
left in July and is now at scooter firm Bird.

There’s a touch of irony in the hire, given Dominiczak worked
closely with a tech enthusiast British minister who admitted to
never having heard of Uber.

Dominiczak was previously special adviser to the Department of
Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport, where she worked alongside
then culture secretary and Conservative politician Matt Hancock.
She followed Hancock over to the Department of Health and Social
Care following a cabinet reshuffle in July.

Hancock told Business Insider in
2015 that he hadn’t known what Uber was until black cab
drivers protested the app outside Parliament. He had also tweeted
in 2014:

Uber had been operating in London for two years by this point.
Hancock did eventually become a fan of Uber, criticising London
mayor Sadiq Khan for the capital’s decision to revoke Uber’s
licence.

Dominiczak joins as Uber continues to navigate political issues
in the UK. Lawmakers
have held up the company as a negative example of the gig
economy, while
Uber drivers have won Labour party support for a series of
well-organised protests over pay and treatment. The company
must also tread carefully if it wants
to retain its temporary licence to operate in London over the
long term.

Politicos moving into tech

Dominiczak follows a wider trend of former special advisers
popping up on London’s tech scene or heading to Silicon Valley
companies. Her new boss, Belardinelli, worked on the opposite
side of the table as a special adviser to former Labour
politician Ed Balls.

Others who have defected from UK politics to tech include Verity
Harding, once special adviser to the prime minister and now an
employee at Google DeepMind; Thea Rogers, former special adviser
to George Osborne and now working for Deliveroo; and Daniel
Korski, another former adviser to the prime minister who now runs
a programme to link startups with government.