Uber Costa Rica hires CEO, service to launch in coming months

August 11^th, 2015 (ICR News) Executives from the controversial “driver for hire” smartphone app Uber have hired a CEO for its Costa Rica operations, the company announced on Monday.

Humberto Pacheco, 35 will take the helm of the company’s Costa Rica operations, which are expected to launch in the coming months.

Pacheco received an MBA with an emphasis in finance from Columbia University in New York.  He is the son of Humberto Alpizar Pacheco, former president of the Costa Rican-American Chamber of Commerce.  Pacheco was most recently a partner in the law firm Pacheco y Coto.

Uber executives plan to have a meeting with Costa Rica’s transport ministry by the end of the month, according to sources.

Costa Rica’s largest union of licensed taxi drivers, known as the National Taxi Drivers Forum, said late last month that they were “declaring war” against Uber.

The union said it has established alliances with other groups in opposition to the service in Colombia, Panama, and Mexico with the singular goal of keeping the service out of Costa Rica.

Late last month, some one hundred taxi drivers gathered outside the Colombian embassy in San Jose to express their solidarity with taxi drivers in Colombia, who were protesting in Bogota.

Opposition to San Francisco-based Uber has been strong in other parts of the world, including other Latin America countries where strikes and demonstrations have ensued.