Instacart names Facebook exec Fidji Simo as CEO

By Sara Ashley O’Brien, CNN Business

Instacart has tapped one of the top female executives from Facebook to be its next CEO ahead of a possible Wall Street debut.

Fidji Simo, who served most recently as a vice president and head of the Facebook App, will replace Instacart’s cofounder Apoorva Mehta as chief executive of the fast-growing grocery delivery service. The hire makes Simo the rare female CEO of a large on-demand delivery company, and one that is reportedly making moves to go public.

In a letter to the Instacart community Thursday announcing the news, Mehta said Simo was “at Facebook during its transition from a private company to the public market and understands what it takes to lead and scale a transformational company.”

“I believe that with Fidji at the helm we’ll be in an even stronger position to realize our full potential and I look forward to working with her in our journey ahead,” said Mehta, who will transition into the role of executive chairman of the board.

Simo, who joined Instacart’s board earlier this year and will officially begin as CEO on August 2, will be inheriting a company that has experienced a tremendous surge in customer and investor demand from the pandemic. The company, which was valued at $39 billion in March, saw its valuation double twice since the pandemic began.

Simo first joined Facebook in 2011 and has spent a decade at the social media giant. At Facebook, she oversaw development and strategy for its app, including its News Feed, Stories, Groups, Video and Marketplace services. Prior to that, she worked at eBay, where she was part of the company’s strategy team.

In a lengthy Facebook post on Thursday, Simo made clear she would draw on her experience working at Facebook, where she helped design its advertising business, to grow Instacart’s more nascent ad sales operation. She said she “can’t wait to work with [consumer packaged goods] companies big and small to help them get their products discovered.”

Nilam Ganenthiran, president of Instacart, told CNN Business in March the company aims to develop “a leading advertising platform that supports the entire grocery ecosystem.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.