Instacart Hires Another Senior Female Facebook Vet, Naming Ex-Ad Chief Carolyn Everson President

Incoming CEO Fidji Simo, who until last month was head of the Facebook App, officially took over Instacart’s top job on Monday. Her first public move: hiring her longtime colleague Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s former global ad chief, as her new company’s president.

Everson, a leading advertising executive who resigned from Facebook in June, will start at Instacart on Sept. 7, the grocery-delivery startup said on Wednesday. Current president Nilam Ganenthiran will become a strategic adviser to Simo, who is succeeding founder Apoorva Mehta as Instacart comes off a massive pandemic growth spurt and prepares for an expected initial public offering. The San Francisco company recorded $1.5 billion in revenue last year and is privately valued at $39 billion, but needs to fend off fierce competition from other delivery services and figure out new growth strategies, now that post-lockdown customers are returning to in-person shopping.

Simo and her new president worked together at Facebook for about a decade “and have become good friends,” Everson wrote on LinkedIn in May. Earlier this summer, the two women announced their departures from the social media giant within weeks of each other. Now Everson will report directly to Simo and assume responsibility for an expansive portfolio that includes Instacart’s retail, business development, and advertising operations, as well as its teams devoted to people, policy and government affairs, legal, partnerships, Instacart Pickup, and care.