The rapidly expanding AURA has welcomed a new member to its C-suite ranks in David Myers, the former general manager and regional operations lead for Uber in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

As a quick refresher, AURA is a marketplace that makes on-demand emergency services more accessible. At present, the AURA network is comprised of 170 private security companies and there are over 250 000 users. AURA makes use of artificial intelligence to dispatch security personnel to areas they are needed, essentially centralising the fragmented private security market in South Africa.

The addition of Myers to the team as chief operations officer will surely help AURA expand into even more markets given his decades of experience and history in the security industry.

“I started my career in the security industry in SA, at first with a proactive security start-up, and then ADT Tyco before moving to the largest and most efficient tech-enabled marketplace in the world at Uber. Combining these two allows me to leverage my learnings and experience while having an immense impact on people’s lives,” Myers said in a statement.

AURA says co-founder, Ryan Green will be transitioning to an area of the business where he can focus on launching AURA in new markets and new businesses in a bid to spread the firm’s wings.

“Ryan will be transitioning into the area of launching new businesses and markets, scaling the business globally, as I take over as COO. He’ll build new markets from 0 to 1, hand over to me and the operations team, and we’ll build from 1 to 100,” says Myers.

“I believe David is perfect for this role and his work experience up to this point will be extremely valuable,” said Green.

We have to agree with Green there and we’re incredibly keen to see how AURA grows with Myers at the helm.