Instacart has announced a number of promotions to its C-suite and the creation of two new senior leadership positions — Chief Business Officer and Chief Architect — in order to better position the business toward its ambition of becoming a full-service grocery technology company as readies to IPO.
“As we reimagine the role that Instacart has to play — as an enablement platform for our retail partners and pioneer for the industry — ensuring our teams are set up for success has never been more important to our future,” reads a blog post announcing the appointments. “The growth of our leadership team is a testament to our expanded vision as a retail enablement platform and grocery technology company, 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.”
Current VP of Retail Chris Rogers has been promoted to the newly created role of Chief Business Officer, which will combine the company’s Retail and Brand Partnership teams under his leadership. The goal is to “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,” according to the blog post. During Rogers’ three-year tenure as VP of Retail, Instacart has grown its grocer partnerships from 300 banners to more than 800.
Additionally, Instacart’s first CTO Mark Schaaf is stepping down; current VP of Engineering Varouj Chitilian will take over the role. JJ Zhuang, who previously served as Head of Infrastructure, will work closely with Chitilian in the newly created role of Chief Architect to drive technology and architecture decisions.
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Two additional promotions see Daniel Danker elevated to the role of Chief Product Officer and Laura Jones taking on the Chief Marketing Officer job. Both Danker and Jones joined the company in 2021.
In his time with company, Danker has driven the launch of some of Instacart’s biggest new offerings, including the revamped Instacart+ subscription service, a new enterprise technology solution for grocers called Instacart Platform, and the recently debuted rewards program for the company’s order pickers and drivers, Cart Star. He also led the expansion of Instacart’s convenience offerings and other pushes into non-grocery verticals.
Jones also has a full roster of accomplishments from her short time with the company, including driving the launch of Instacart’s new brand identity, building an in-house studio and expanding the company’s capabilities from inbound demand to programmatic media.