Instacart has appointed current Chief Business Officer Chris Rogers as its next CEO, following the news earlier this month that current CEO, Fidji Simo, will be leaving the company to take on a leadership role at OpenAI.
“I want to apologize for how unexpected this may feel,” said Simo in a letter to employees on May 7 when news broke of her departure. “This is not how I planned for you all to hear this news, but a media leak unfortunately expedited the timeline by several weeks.”
Now, several weeks later, Instacart has unveiled its succession plan: Simo will remain with the company as Chair of the Board to help ensure a smooth transition for Rogers, who also will join the Instacart board when he formally takes over on August 15.
Rogers joined Instacart in 2019 following nearly 11 years at Apple, where he served as the Managing Director for Apple Canada. He started his career at Procter & Gamble, where he led relationships with Canada’s largest national grocery retailers.
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Instacart to Stay the Course Under Rogers
Both Simo and Rogers emphasized that Instacart’s current strategy will not change under Rogers’ leadership: “We remain focused on building the technologies to power every grocery transaction, online and in-store,” said Rogers in a blog post. “At the heart of that approach is our unwavering commitment to growing the pie for retailers and brands.”
“Over the last four years, we’ve transformed Instacart into a growing, profitable, leading technology platform that’s helping reshape the grocery industry,” added Simo in a statement. “We’re building a generational company at the intersection of technology and food, and Chris is the right leader for our next chapter. He brings the kind of vision, operational excellence and customer obsession that will help Instacart play an even bigger role in people’s lives — and I couldn’t be more excited to see how Chris scales the company’s impact from here.”
Earlier this month, Instacart also purchased one of its biggest competitors in the grocery ecommerce space with the acquisition of Wynshop.
Simo Couldn’t Pass up OpenAI Opportunity
Later this summer Simo will head over to OpenAI where she will serve as CEO of Applications, leading the product, business and other company functions. Simo will report directly to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
“In her new role, Fidji will focus on enabling our ‘traditional’ company functions to scale as we enter a next phase of growth,” said Altman in a message on May 7. “I’m passionate about many of these areas and I will stay closely involved with key company decisions. Fidji brings a rare blend of leadership, product and operational expertise, and genuine commitment to ensuring our technology benefits everyone.”
Simo said in her letter that leaving Instacart was a difficult choice, but “the ability to lead such an important part of our collective future was a hard opportunity to pass up.” In particular, Simo called out the potential of AI applications to help cure diseases.
“On behalf of the board, I want to sincerely thank Fidji for her immense contributions to Instacart over the past four years,” said Lily Sarafan, Lead Independent Director of the Instacart Board in a statement. “Fidji brought a bold vision and exceptional focus on execution, taking Instacart from a single-purpose app to the leading grocery technology platform. We appreciate her dedication to Instacart and ongoing commitment to the company as Chair of the Board, and look forward to supporting Chris as CEO.”
