Instacart hires former Facebook exec Carolyn Everson weeks after poaching Fidji Simo as CEO
President of Global Marketing Solutions for Facebook, Carolyn Everson attends the forum titled “Poverty Alleviation & Economic Development” within the One Young World Summit 2017 at Agora Conference & Special Events Center in Bogota, Colombia on October 05, 2017.
Lokman Ilhan | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Grocery delivery app Instacart on Wednesday announced it has nabbed yet another former Facebook executive: Longtime Facebook ads chief Carolyn Everson, who left the company in June. Everson is moving to Instacart mere weeks after Fidji Simo, former head of the Facebook app, took over as CEO.
Instacart is the largest of the remaining privately held delivery companies, but faces competition from Uber‘s growing delivery business as well as upstarts like GoPuff. It was valued at $39 billion in a March funding round and is widely expected to go public in the next year.
Everson will join Instacart on Sept. 7 in the role of president, succeeding current President Nilam Ganenthiran, who will become a strategic advisor to the CEO. Everson will oversee several divisions, including advertising, partnerships, policy and legal, Instacart said.
Everson spent more than 10 years at Facebook where she served as the face of the company for major advertisers as the vice president of its global business group.
In an interview with CNBC’s “TechCheck,” Wednesday, Simo addressed why Instacart is becoming so appealing to top Facebook talent. She said the company has brought in “an equal number” of workers from Facebook, Google and Amazon.
“I think it’s really important to talk not just about diversity of gender and race but also diversity of thoughts, so it’s really important for us to attract people from very different companies that have very different experiences,” Simo said. “And I think you know the fact that Carolyn and I were so excited after 10 years at Facebook to join Instacart, just speaks to the strength of the business and the opportunities that Instacart has in front of it.”
Facebook Chief Diversity Officer Maxine Williams in July said the departures of Simo and Everson are not such a bad thing because they’re moving into high-ranking leadership roles elsewhere.
Instacart said with the addition of Everson, 55% of its executive leadership team is now female.
