Uber sharply pared back the power of its Chief Executive Travis Kalanick Tuesday as the controversial leader of one of the technology industry’s most visible companies stepped down for an indefinite leave of absence after months of growing controversy.

He disclosed the leave in a company-wide email as the Uber board sought to reverse rising scandal — much of it over allegations of sexual harassment and other unprofessional conduct — that had brought the ride-hailing service to crisis while undermining his hold on power at the company.

Kalanick’s return date is not specified, and his responsibilities will undergo « review » to possibly shift some duties to other executives. He also faces the likelihood of reduced clout on the board, which is adding new « independent » members and creating an oversight committee to monitor efforts to improve corporate ethics and diversity.

« The ultimate responsibility, for where we’ve gotten and how we’ve gotten here rests on my shoulders, » Kalanick wrote in his e-mail to employees. « There is of course much to be proud of but there is much to improve. For Uber 2.0 to succeed there is nothing more important than dedicating my time to building out the leadership team. But if we are going to work on Uber 2.0, I also need to work on Travis 2.0 to become the leader that this company needs and that you deserve. »

In describing reasons for the leave, Kalanick also cited the death of his mother and serious injuring of his father in a boating accident last month, saying, « I need to take some time off of the day-to-day to grieve my mother, whom I buried on Friday, to reflect, to work on myself, and to focus on building out a world-class leadership team. »

Breaking: Uber CEO Travis Kalanick memo to employees on his leave of absence. Full text. @NPR pic.twitter.com/tCE4bZ2C0u

— Aarti Shahani (@aarti411) June 13, 2017

Uber announced the recommendations Tuesday, prepared from a report by former U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., hired by Uber to address mounting criticism of the company. The full report is being withheld from the public and the bulk of the company’s 14,000 employees worldwide.

The 47 recommendations, which are sweeping and touch virtually every aspect of company management, were released at an employee meeting at the company’s San Francisco headquarters Tuesday after being accepted by the board at a marathon meeting on Sunday.

[Read the Holder report recommendations]

Even while the employee meeting was still going on Tuesday, former Uber engineer Susan J. Fowler — whose complaints about the company’s tone deaf response to her allegations of sexual harassment there — blasted the response as inadequate to resolve the many toxic elements of Uber’s corporate culture.

« Ha! Yeah, they’ll never apologize, » Fowler tweeted in reply to another person. « I’ve gotten nothing but aggressive hostility from them. It’s all optics. »

Under the proposals, senior managers will undergo mandatory leadership training, and Uber’s current Head of Diversity will be renamed as the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer and report directly to the chief executive or chief operating officer. Uber also will adopt the equivalent of the NFL’s « Rooney Rule » requiring that when the company is filling a key job, at least one women and one minority candidate be interviewed before the hire can go forward.

The report called for employee complaints to be handled using a comprehensive process, and for upgrades to employee benefits including equal family leave time for both male and female workers. There also is a newly imposed ban on sexual relationships between employees at different levels of the staff hierarchy, and there are new limits on the consumption of alcohol and illegal drugs during the workday and at company events.

Reports that Kalanick was considering a leave had sparked intense speculation over who might lead a company that has been built in the chief executive’s brash image. In his note Kalanick did not name a temporary new chief executive, suggesting instead that he might stay close to operations even while on leave.

« During this interim period, the leadership team, my directs, will be running the company, » Kalanick wrote. « I will be available as needed for the most strategic decisions, but I will be empowering them to be bold and decisive in order to move the company forward swiftly. »

The corporate shakeup at Uber already has prompted several executive departures, including Monday’s announcement that Senior Vice President for Business Emil Michael, a close Kalanick ally and confidante, was leaving amid pressure from the board.

Uber also announced Monday that it was adding a new member, Nestle executive Wan Ling Martello, to one of several empty seats on the board. She is expected to bring financial expertise while also providing another high-profile woman to a company criticized as exemplifying Silicon Valley’s male-dominated « bro » culture.

As part of the internal investigation led by Holder, Uber already has fired 20 employees while issuing reprimands and requiring new training for others amid 215 reports of possible sexual harassment, bullying, retaliation and other unprofessional conduct. (Some cases remain open pending further investigation by a second law firm, Perkins Coie.)

“This is a hugely significant event,” said Michael Useem, a management professor in the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

The list of recommendations reads like a textbook from “Leadership and Management 101″ and, if implemented effectively, could serve as a model for other Silicon Valley companies grappling with diversity and harassment issues, said Useem.

The Uber board has been struggling to right the trajectory of company, worth nearly $70 billion by some estimates, but have had limited ability to remove or even reprimand Kalanick, who along with other allies have outsized voting power because of a special class of shares they control. The controversies have reportedly cut into Uber’s popularity and once-commanding position within the ride-hailing marketplace in 75 markets worldwide.

Rival Lyft now accounts for 25 percent of all trips taken in the U.S. ride-hailing market, up from 18 percent at the beginning of the year, according to data from TXN. In recent months, the company found, even loyal Uber customers that have stayed with the service have also increased their spending on Lyft. In the first quarter of 2017, ridership had surged to 70.4 million rides, significantly exceeding expectations. Uber didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The public mood over Uber began to turn when Kalanick joined an advisory board for President Trump and appeared to undermine a New York taxi strike related to the president’s controversial effort to impose a travel ban, sparking the #DeleteUber movement.

A scathing blog post in February by Fowler, who reported that an unwanted sexual advance by her boss was ignored by company management, triggered a wave of denunciations of the corporate culture at Uber.

The Justice Department then launched a criminal investigation over allegations that the company used a software tool to evade regulators. At the same time, Uber got in a highly public legal battle with Waymo, the self-driving-car unit of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, over alleged theft of intellectual property. Uber fired the head of that program, Anthony Levandowski, last month for failing to comply with a court order to turn over documents in the case

Waymo has accused Uber of stealing the laser-sensing technology that allows driverless cars to see their surroundings. The legal fight’s outcome could have serious ramifications for Uber’s long-term business model.

Kalanick has effectively bet the business on self-driving technology. Without it, he has said, Uber cannot hope to compete in a world of growing automation.

A court ruling against Uber could undermine to the company’s efforts to develop self-driving cars, some analysts said, raising questions about its ability to survive in a world where companies from Tesla to Ford are vying for dominance over the future of automated transportation.

Read more:

From #deleteUber to ‘Hell’: A short history of Uber’s recent struggles

Top Uber exec Emil Michael departs the company as Kalanick’s fate remains in doubt

TOKYO — University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier has been medically evacuated from North Korea in a coma after being detained for 17 months, his parents told The Washington Post on Tuesday.

Warmbier, 22, is due to arrive home in Cincinnati on Tuesday evening, after a stop at a U.S. military facility near Sapporo, Japan.

The family said they were informed that North Korean officials had told American envoys that Warmbier became ill with botulism sometime after his March trial in North Korea, where he was serving a 15-year-sentence for “hostile acts against the state.”

The North Korean account, the family said, claimed Warmbier then fell into a coma after being given a sleeping pill. The Warmbiers said they were told their son has remained in a coma since then.

[North Korea is still holding 3 other Americans as prisoners]

There was no immediate confirmation from U.S. officials of North Korea’s description of his illness — including whether he was stricken with botulism, a potentially fatal disease that is caused by a toxin but is not usually associated with loss of consciousness.

According to Trump administration officials, information about Warmbier’s condition was transmitted on June 6 by North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations to Joseph Yun, the State Department’s special representative for North Korea, at a meeting in New York.

That meeting followed an earlier, secret meeting last month between Yun and high-level North Korean officials in Oslo. At that time, North Korea agreed that Swedish diplomats in Pyongyang, who handle U.S. affairs there, would be allowed for the first time to visit four Americans imprisoned by the North, including Warmbier.

It was after the Swedish consular visit — confirming Warmbier’s condition — that North Korea urgently requested to meet with Yun in New York last week.

Yun immediately informed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of the situation, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity about the still-secret arrangements.

Tillerson, they said, consulted with President Trump, and Yun was instructed to prepare to travel to Pyongyang with the intention of bring Warmbier back to the United States. A medical team and aircraft were organized, and North Korea was informed that a delegation would travel there.

Yun arrived in Pyongyang early Monday and immediately requested that North Korean officials take him and two American physicians to Warmbier. It was the first time the United States was able to confirm his status since he was sentenced.

Yun insisted on Warmbier’s immediate release on humanitarian grounds, officials said, and the North Koreans agreed.

[Worried about North Korea? Spare a thought for Otto Warmbier’s family.]

“Our son is coming home,” Fred Warmbier told The Post on Tuesday morning after Otto Warmbier was evacuated. “At the moment, we’re just treating this like he’s been in an accident. We get to see our son Otto tonight.”

His release was announced in Washington by Tillerson, who did not discuss Warmbier’s medical condition.

Tillerson called Trump at 8:35 a.m. Tuesday to inform him that Warmbier was on an airplane en route to the United States, an official said. The last instruction the president left Tillerson was: “Take care of Otto,” the official said.

At the time of his arrest, Warmbier had been on a stopover tour in North Korea, en route to Hong Kong, where he was to do a January 2016 study-abroad trip.

But on his final night in Pyongyang — New Year’s Eve — he apparently went to a staff-only floor of his hotel and attempted to take down a large propaganda sign lauding the regime.

He was charged with “hostile acts against the state.” After an hour-long trial in March 2016, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor.

He had not been seen in public since. Swedish diplomats, who represent U.S. interests in North Korea because the United States has no diplomatic relations with the country, had been denied access to him until late last month, following Yun’s Oslo meeting.

North Korea has woefully inadequate medical care, and it is not clear how North Korean doctors had been caring for Warmbier for more than a year in an unconscious state.

Warmbier was flown out of North Korea on the same day that Dennis Rodman, the controversial former basketball star, arrived for his fifth visit in Pyongyang. Rodman’s trip caused a media frenzy because of heightened tensions between North Korea and the United States, but it also raised speculation that he might be going as an envoy to secure the release of Warmbier and three other Americans being detained.

[ North Korea sentences U-Va. student to 15 years of hard labor in prison ]

Officials involved in securing Warmbier’s release told The Post that it had nothing to do with Rodman’s trip to Pyongyang, calling it a “bizarre coincidence” that might have been a deliberate ploy from North Korea to distract from Warmbier’s condition.

One of Warmbier’s roommates at U-Va., Emmett Saulnier, said he got a call Tuesday morning from Fred Warmbier to inform him of the release.

“I’m mostly just very happy to hear that he’s coming home and alive,” Saulnier said. “The coma is obviously very concerning. I’m not really sure what to think of that at this point … I’m hoping it’s not as bad as it sounds and he’ll wake up and be okay.”

Saulnier added, “I’m glad he’s going to have the best medical care, rather than whatever was going on over there.”

Warmbier would have graduated last month had he not been detained.

“While the entire University of Virginia community is relieved to learn of Otto’s release from North Korea, we are deeply concerned and saddened to learn from his family that he is in a coma,” U-Va.’s president, Teresa A. Sullivan, said in a written statement Tuesday.

“The last 17 months have been an extremely difficult and emotionally trying time for the Warmbier family,” she said. “The U-Va. family will continue to keep the Warmbiers in our thoughts and prayers as Otto returns to the United States and his home where he will receive the care and support of those who love him.”

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), called Warmbier’s arrest and trial “unnecessary and appalling.”

“North Korea should be universally condemned for its abhorrent behavior. Otto should have been released from the start,” Portman said in a statement. “For North Korea to imprison Otto with no notification or consular access for more than a year is the utmost example of its complete failure to recognize fundamental human rights and dignity.”

Lawmakers from Virginia also hailed Warmbier’s release and denounced North Korea of its actions.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) called Warmbier’s freedom “a long time coming” after facing “trumped-up charges.”

“It is horrific that a young man in a coma was incarcerated in a North Korea jail,” Connolly said in a statement.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), meanwhile, said he was “heartened to see the reuniting of the Warmbier family, despite the tragic circumstances.”

A former Virginia resident, Kim Dong-chul, was arrested shortly after Warmbier, on accusations of espionage, and has been held since.

In April and May, North Korea detained two other Korean Americans, both of them affiliated with the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, a private institution run by Korean American Christians.

Previous detainees have been released after visits from high-profile Americans, including former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. But efforts to persuade North Korea to release the men currently held had not been successful until Warmbier’s release Tuesday.

DeYoung reported from Washington. David Nakamura, Jenna Portnoy and Susan Svrluga in Washington contributed to this report.