Instacart signals global expansion with latest VP hirings

Instacart tipped plans for international expansion in announcing the addition of four new vice presidents, including executives from Facebook and Uber Eats.

San Francisco-based Instacart said Wednesday that it has hired two new product leaders, Nikila Srinivasan as VP of product for international and David McIntosh as VP of product for retailers. They join two other recently appointed product leaders at the online delivery giant: Max Eulenstein, VP of product for Instacart App, and Daniel Danker, VP of product for shoppers and fulfillment. 

Plans call for Srinivasan (left) to lead the development of Instacart’s long-term international strategy, the company said, noting that it’s exploring potential future markets. She comes to Instacart from Facebook, where she most recently served as senior director and head of consumer product for communities. In that role, Srinivasan led key product lines such as Facebook Groups, Events and Dating.

Her more than seven years at Facebook also included serving as director of product for advertiser growth in small-business products — in which she responsible for growing the platform to 180 million small businesses and 10 million advertisers, Instacart noted — and as product lead for emerging markets based out of London, where she was part of the team responsible for building and scaling two international locations in London and the Asia-Pacific.

Related:Instacart delivery expands to 6,000 7-Eleven stores

“Grocery is the world’s largest retail category, but it’s still in the early stages of its digital transformation,” Instacart stated in an email. “We’re continuing to invest deeply in the $1.3 trillion North American grocery industry, and today we’re excited to announce our global ambitions as we welcome Nikila Srinivasan as our VP of product, international.”

Outside the United States, the only market where Instacart offers its delivery and pickup services is Canada, where the company set up a new Toronto technology hub — dubbed Instacart North — in early 2019. Instacart’s retail partners in Canada include large chains such as Walmart, Loblaw Cos., Costco Wholesale and Staples.

Currently, Instacart is North America’s largest third-party online grocery platform, partnering with more than 600 national, regional and local retailers and delivering from nearly 55,000 stores across more than 5,500 cities. Instacart’s delivery service reaches 85% of U.S. households and 70% of Canadian households.

Meanwhile, McIntosh (left) comes to Instacart from Tenor, where he was the founder and CEO. A Google-acquired expression (GIF) search engine and global content marketplace, Tenor has hundreds of millions of users and integrations with apps such as Apple iMessage, Google’s Gboard, Messenger and Twitter.

Related:Instacart continues to expand beyond grocery in partnership with Michaels

In his new role as VP of product for retail, McIntosh will lead Instacart’s retailer product group, which focuses on developing the Instacart marketplace, enterprise services and new verticals to support retailers’ e-commerce needs.

Eulenstein (left), who joined Instacart in March as VP of product for Instacart App, directs development of Instacart’s consumer-facing marketplace app and services. He came to the company after nearly 10 years at social media giant Facebook, including roles as director of product management for Instagram as well as for Facebook.

Instacart noted that Eulenstein worked across areas of the business including Stories, News Feed, Mobile App Ads and the Instagram Community.

Danker (left), another March appointment, now oversees product experiences. services, operations and logistics for Instacart’s community of more than 500,000 personal shoppers. He assumed the role of VP of product for shoppers and fulfillment after serving as head of product at Uber Eats and, prior to that, as senior director of the driver team at parent company Uber. His career also includes such roles as product director for Facebook Video, chief product officer for Shazam and general manager at the BBC, as well as over 10 years at Microsoft, most recently as director of engineering and operations.

Srinivasan, McIntosh, Eulenstein and Danker all report to Chief Operating Officer Asha Sharma, who joined Instacart in February after serving as VP of product and engineering at Facebook.

Instacart said it aims to support its “next chapter of growth” by expanding its corporate team over 50% in 2021. Some of the company’s most recent hires include Nick Giovanni as CFO, coming over from Goldman Sachs; Christina Hall as chief human resources officer, joining from LinkedIn; Ryan Mayward as VP of ad sales, coming over from Amazon; Rama Katkar as VP of finance, joining from Credit Karma; Casey Aden-Wansbury as VP of policy and government affairs, coming over from Airbnb; and Vik Gupta as VP of engineering for advertising, joining from Google.

The addition of Giovanni, an IPO and M&A specialist at Goldman Sachs, in January had fueled industry buzz that Instacart was readying an initial public offering. News had surfaced in November that Instacart was gearing up for an IPO and enlisted Goldman Sachs to lead the offering, with a potential launch in 2021. And in February, Fidji Simo, head of Facebook App, and Barry McCarthy, ex-chief financial officer for Spotify and Netflix, joined the board of directors at Instacart.

In March, Instacart’s valuation swelled to $39 billion with the addition of $265 million from a new round of financing. The company’s previous funding came last October, when the company landed $200 million and lifted its valuation to $17.7 billion.