Meet the woman in charge of Uber’s expansion

Andrew NuscaBy Andrew NuscaEditorial Director, Brainstorm and author of Fortune Tech
Andrew NuscaEditorial Director, Brainstorm and author of Fortune Tech

Andrew Nusca is the editorial director of Brainstorm, Fortune's innovation-obsessed community and event series. He also authors Fortune Tech, Fortune’s flagship tech newsletter.

Austin Geidt, Uber
contract Armin Harris
Photograph by Benjamin Rasmussen for Fortune

Age: 30

From: San Francisco

Pole position: Uber employee No. 4, now head of global expansion and its PRO (process, resource, optimization) team, never thought she’d be leading the charge for a tech startup worth more than $50 billion. “I kind of fell into it. I had just finished school at Berkeley, and I was looking for a job.”

Lane change: With Uber now in 330 cities and counting, Geidt’s focus has expanded from launches to overall business operations. “There are a lot of opportunities for things to go off the rails—so that you don’t break into 330 different companies.”

Top gear: Geidt is also working on Uber’s 1 Million Women initiative, a plan to enroll a million female drivers by 2020. “We’re trying to understand how women drivers are interacting with our system. So far the results have been really interesting. They want to work part-time, and they’re juggling a lot.”

Race Ready: Wearing multiple hats comes naturally to Geidt. “It’s about learning my limits. I haven’t found them yet.”

A version of this article appears in the September 15, 2015 issue of Fortune magazine with the headline “Austin Geidt, Uber.”