Grocery delivery app, Instacart has announced a new Chief Executive Facebook’s Fidji Simo as its new CEO in a move projected to revitalize the company.
The 35-year old Simo is to take over from Instacart founder, Apoorva Mehta who has transitioned as the Executive Chairman of the company’s board.
The new Instacart CEO, who resumes office by August, is one of Facebook’s most senior female executives and had earlier this year made history when she became the first woman on Instacart’s board.
News were rife in the stock market that Instacart will go public in a direct listing later this year as Its cumulative shares was valued at $39 billion in its most recent funding round, around March. This makes Instacart the second most valuable privately held company after Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which was also valued at $74 billion then, according to CNBC.
In her interview with CNBC, the new CEO confessed that she was “blown away” by Mehta’s leadership, and saw they “shared a really ambitious vision for Instacart.”
“We saw the emergence of a lot of new companies built on top of Facebook ads,” she told CNBC. “And I’m seeing the same thing happening within Instacart’s business, where not only existing food companies are reaching new customers, but I see new food companies having the potential to be created.”
She explained her transition from a lover of Instacart as a customer to a board member and how honored she is to become the company’s CEO, to lead its next growth chapter.
“As we think about the future of food, we believe the way people eat and their relationship with food will fundamentally change over the next decade. They’ll expect a more convenient experience, the widest selection of food at their fingertips, faster delivery times, increased personalization, and more inspiration.”, she added.
Instacart as a grocery App is said to be facing increasing competition from competitors like Amazon, Walmart, DoorDashand Uber, with all of them seeking to capitalize on the growing demand of grocery delivery.
Earlier in the year, Instacart introduced a 30-minute grocery delivery service in 15 cities to its teeming customers and says ithas further plans to extend this service in more locations.
