Carolyn Everson joins Instacart as president

Instacart is tapping Carolyn Everson as president, reuniting her with Fidji Simo, the online grocer's new CEO, who worked closely with Everson for years at Facebook until both of them left the social network within the past two months. On Wednesday, Instacart announced that Everson would join the company in September, reporting directly to Simo. Everson is best known for helping grow Facebook’s advertising business as head of the global business group since 2011. Everson worked closely with top brands and marketers at Facebook, and her departure in June set off waves of speculation about what tech company would land her expertise—and extensive contact list. Everson's purview at Instacart "is going to be much larger than advertising," Simo told Ad Age in an interview on her second day as CEO of Instacart after leaving her role as head of the Facebook App division of Facebook in early July. “As president of the company, she’s going to not just focus on the relationships with advertisers, which is [Seth Dallaire’s] mandate, but also she’s focusing on our relationships with retailers. She’s going to lead the people team. She’s going to lead our policy and government relations, as well as our care team. And so her purview is very broad,” Simo says. Dallaire is chief revenue officer at Instacart. In 2019, Instacart poached Dallaire from Amazon, where he had been the head of global ad sales and was instrumental in building Amazon’s programmatic advertising technology. Instacart is developing its own ad products to complement grocery delivery, giving retailers within its platform the ability to manage ad campaigns and boost their sales through marketing. Dallaire will report to Everson, Simo says. Everson was not made available for comment. Simo and Everson have been two of the most high-profile departures from Facebook this year, a sign that the social network is undergoing a bit of a restructuring. They both worked at Facebook since 2011, and stuck with the company through its most tumultous points over the past several years. Everson worked closely with brands and ad agencies, through the Facebook Client Council, to address the ever-evolving needs of advertisers. Over the years, advertisers were affected by measurement issues, data abuses and disinformation. Everson was always known as the fixer who could settle tensions. Meanwhile, Instacart is competing with some of the biggest companies like Amazon and Walmart, riding the pandemic surge in e-commerce, particularly around grocery delivery, and it is expected to hold an initial public offering as early as this year. The company has been beefing up its executive ranks ahead of any such move. Simo would not divulge any details of an impending initial public offering. “We almost quadrupled [sales] last year,” Simo says. “And basically we saw many years of growth just pulled forward in one year, and now we have a new resting heart rate of the business.” Simo also pointed to the fact that the Instacart leadership team is comprised of 55% women, calling it an important milestone. “It reflects our customer base, which is 80% women,” Simo says. “We already know that we [Carolyn and I] share the same values and the same leadership ethos,” Simo says. “So for example, for us it’s incredibly important that our legacy is not just the size of the business but also the culture that we create at the company.” Instacart considers itself a “retail enablement platform,” giving the grocery stores, retailers and consumer packaged goods brands tools to sell directly to consumers online. Ads are crucial for getting products into online shopping carts, and they are also a valuable source of revenue. “One of the things that’s really important to understand about grocery retail is that the margins are thin,” Simo says. “And as a result, if you want to continue building an online business, bringing in more sources of profitability like ads is incredibly important.” Simo says that Everson’s relationships with brands and retailers, developed over years at Facebook, will be fundamental to the job. “She will bring a lot of relationships to this role,” Simo says. “The thing that is really unique about Carolyn that I love is that when she creates these relationships with partners of any kind, she really puts herself in the shoes of partners and she creates a relationship based on trust.” Everson is replacing Nilam Ganenthiran, as president at Instacart. Ganethiran is moving to a strategic advisor role. Instacart now has 2,400 employees.

Carolyn Everson joins Instacart as president

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