Instacart taps Facebook’s Fidji Simo as its new CEO

Instacart said on Thursday its founder Apoorva Mehta has decided to step down as the company’s CEO. Mehta will quit the role on August 2^nd and transition to executive chairman of the board. The grocery delivery firm has already hired a replacement – a well-revered Silicon Valley executive – Fidji Simo.  

Simo has most recently served at Facebook, where she ran its flagship social network. After Marne Levine (Chief Business Officer) and Sheryl Sandberg (Chief Operating Officer), Simo is the highest-ranking female executive at Facebook.

Facebook is yet to name Simo’s replacement

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The social media giant is yet to name its new head of Facebook app, but in her interview with CNBC, Simo expressed her gratitude for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who she said had been “supportive from day one”. Commenting on Simo’s appointment as the new Instacart CEO, Mehta said:

“To be honest, the idea of someone else running the company had never even crossed my mind. But I’ve been blown away by her capabilities as a leader.”

Simo affiliated herself with Instacart as a board member earlier this year. She was the first female on Instacart’s board and is now set to be the first outsider to lead the American company.

Simo’s vision for Instacart

Founded in 2021, Instacart is a retail company that was last valued at $39 billion, making it the third most valuable private company in the United States, according to Pitchbook. Speaking about her vision for Instacart, Simo said she wanted to turn the company’s food delivery business into an “incredible consumer app”. She was also excited about exploring the potential in Instacart’s advertising and enterprise businesses that have been growing rapidly.

“We saw the emergence of a lot of new companies built on top of Facebook ads. 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 told CNBC.