Rogelio Magana has shaped Instacart’s move from a tech delivery startup to a vibrant lifestyle platform.

As senior director of brand strategy and campaigns, Magana, 37, is responsible for Instacart’s marketing campaigns; brand, celebrity and influencer strategy; organic social; and experiential marketing. The company had very little of those functions before Magana’s arrival in 2021 from Burger King, but they have since become foundational elements of Instacart’s rebrand.

Among Magana’s recent accomplishments was setting up a Threads account in a matter of hours. He also launched Instacart’s TikTok channel and transformed its Twitter account into a culturally relevant commenter on food trends. 

Magana and his team were also involved in Instacart’s award-winning rebrand last year, which involved turning the brand’s carrot logo into an iconic visual identity system. It also meant working on the brand’s transformative “The world is your cart” campaign starring Lizzo. Magana said the Lizzo campaign was meaningful to him because it showed off Instacart’s unique vision for an omnichannel grocery shopping experience. 

Since the Lizzo campaign launch, Instacart received 2 billion earned impressions from more than 130 articles, a 302% increase in brand mentions on social media and double-digit increases in both average weekly visits and app reinstalls.

“I always try to keep the human element and the consumer element in mind, in all the work that we do,” said Magana, who was born and raised in Mexico. While companies often find internal politics or team dynamics getting in the way of a consumer-centric approach, Magana habitually grounds himself by asking “Would my mom care?”

“I think always asking why my mom cares, and always bringing a positive intent and a positive energy to the work, is what I bring to the table,” he said.

If you could have dinner with one person, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

I don’t think many people at work know this about me, but I’m a frustrated physicist at heart. I love anything and everything that has to do with the universe, the origins of the universe, how we got here, why we’re here, what we’re made of, everything … If I had to choose someone I could have dinner with it would be people like Frank Greene or Micho Kaku, those almost pop-culture physicists who can bring very complex ideas and explain them to a 3-year-old—or a marketing person who has no background in physics.

What are the top two social media sites you use on a regular basis?

TikTok and Twitter. Both serve as a kind of social town hall. Watching them, you almost get a sense of foreshadowing of what will happen, and where cultural conversation will go to. It’s like Wayne Gretzky said—“Skating to where the puck is going and not to where the puck is.” TikTok and Twitter can help you do that.

What’s currently on your bedside reading list?

I’m an avid reader of “The Economist” every single week, getting to know about every single topic—politics, science, macroeconomics, finance, marketing, business. It just keeps me up to speed.

What was the last show you binge-watched?

I have a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old at home, so any spare time TV watching is with them, watching “Cocomelon” and “Daniel Tiger.”

At what age do you hope to retire?

I love the work I do. I love being part of driving the cultural conversation forward and I love storytelling and marketing itself. So I think if it’s not a typical corporate job, it’s being part of the industry in some way, shape or form. But I don’t see myself retiring, ever.