Instacart announces five C-suite appointments

Online delivery giant Instacart has promoted five executives to the C-suite.

San Francisco-based Instacart, the nation’s largest third-party grocery delivery provider, announced the appointments this week. The company partners with more than 800 national, regional and local retailers in North America and provides online shopping, delivery and pickup from more than 70,000 stores in over 5,500 cities, reaching more than 85% of U.S. households and about 90% of Canadian households.

“We’re excited to share that we’re elevating a number of our leaders and extending our senior leadership bench as we continue to pursue our vision as a grocery technology company,” Instacart said in a blog post.

Leading off the promotions is Chris Rogers (pictured left), who has been elevated from vice president of retail to chief business officer. He will continue to oversee all retail functions while also heading the brand partnerships team.

“With more than a decade of experience at Apple prior to joining Instacart and several years working directly with our retail partners, Chris has honed deep expertise in strategic and commercial relationships. His leadership has allowed Instacart to build meaningful relationships with new partners and significantly expand our work with a number of the top grocers in North America, growing from 300 retail banners when Chris joined to more than 800 today,” Instacart stated. “We believe that more closely aligning our retail and brand partnerships organizations under Chris’ leadership will further align teams in support of our retail enablement vision and create more connective tissue as we continue to innovate for our hundreds of retail partners and thousands of brand partners.”

Related:Instacart rolls out personal shopper rewards program

On the engineering teams, new appointments include one succession and one promotion. Varouj Chitilian, vice president of engineering, is taking over the role of chief technology officer, succeeding Mark Schaaf, who is leaving the company to spend more time with his family and to pursue new opportunities.

Pictured from left: Instacart's Varouj Chitilian and JJ Zhuang.

“From serving as the company’s first chief technology officer to helping us scale through COVID, Mark has done tremendous work here and we are incredibly grateful for his contributions,” according to Instacart. “As we look ahead, we’re excited to share that Instacart’s VP of engineering, Varouj Chitilian, will be assuming the role of chief technology officer. Since joining the company nearly four years ago, Varouj has led the engineering team through a number of Instacart’s most significant technical milestones.”

Related:Instacart upgrades subscription service with Instacart+

In addition, Instacart’s head of infrastructure, JJ Zhuang, is taking on the role of chief architect. “In this expanded role, JJ will drive technology and architecture decisions across all Instacart product pillars and ensure engineering investment is best aligned with long-term business strategy,” the company said.

Changes in the product and marketing teams include two promotions. Daniel Danker, head of product, has been named chief product officer. Instacart noted that Danker has driven “dozens of meaningful new product launches” in the last year, including Instacart , Instacart Platform, Priority Delivery and the Cart Star program. He also led the expansion of Instacart’s convenience offerings and growth beyond grocery verticals.

Pictured from left: Daniel Danker and Laura Jones of Instacart.

Laura Jones, head of marketing, has been promoted to chief marketing officer. “With Laura’s leadership, our marketing is now driving a more meaningful part of our growth,” Instacart said in the blog. “We’ve significantly boosted our spend efficiency, and we’ve made big strides in unaided brand awareness. Laura has also played an instrumental role in the evolution of the Instacart brand.”

The executive changes come two months after Instacart took a preliminary step to pursue an initial public offering. Instagram also celebrated its 10th anniversary in May.

“The growth of our leadership team is a testament to our expanded vision as a retail enablement platform and grocery technology company,” Instacart said in the blog post, “and we’re excited to see these leaders and our teams drive even more value for our partners, customers and shoppers as we look ahead.”