Merging two support models before an acquisition closed
Uber and Blacklane each wrote a plan for post-close support that defended how they already worked. I got both teams to edit a shared comparison instead of arguing over documents, which narrowed the fight to two decisions.
- Organization
- Uber
- My role
- Program Manager MBA Intern
- When
- Summer 2026
- Result
- Future-state support model presented to and approved by the Global Head of Mobility
The problem
Uber was acquiring Blacklane, and two different support models had to become one before the deal went live. Each side had written a vision document, and each one argued for keeping how that team already worked. Nobody owned reconciling them. I was the one person who had read both closely and interviewed both teams, so I took it on.
What I did
I built a lever-by-lever comparison with three columns: Blacklane’s proposal, Uber Ops’s proposal, and the target state I thought was right. Then I asked each team to correct its own column first. That way what they reacted to was their own position written down accurately, not my recommendation, and it narrowed the disagreement to two decisions.
On escalation routing, I split the answer across time instead of across teams. In the short term each side handles its own complaints, followed by a country-by-country migration onto the Uber platform. I also cut day-one automation, which was one of Ops’s priorities, because automating a model we hadn’t run once would break exactly where a premium product can’t afford it.
Result
The future-state document replaced both original documents as the basis for the day-one support model, and the Global Head of Mobility signed off on it.
What I took from it
Both documents argued for the status quo from different directions, and the right answer was neither. What I could actually negotiate wasn’t whether Blacklane kept decision rights, since those were going to Uber regardless, but whether they’d be consulted or just informed. Keeping them in the room is why they signed off on a plan that gave them less than the one they wrote.