Dive Brief:

• Instacart announced on Wednesday that it’s appointing Carolyn Everson as president. Everson will replace Nilam Ganenthiran, who will become a strategic advisor to the company's CEO.
• Everson will start at the e-commerce provider on Sept. 7. She brings 30 years of experience across media, tech and advertising companies to the role and most recently served as vice president of global marketing solutions at Facebook.
• The announcement is the latest in a string of recent executive hires by Instacart and marks another company veteran moving into an auxiliary role. 

Dive Insight:

Like new CEO Fidji Simo, Everson spent a decade at Facebook and brings extensive experience with building advertising relationships as Instacart ramps up its digital ads division. 

At Facebook, Everson led the company’s relationships with top advertisers and agencies. She also headed up Facebook’s Creative Shop, its in-house ad agency, as well as a team focused on global partnerships. In the hiring announcement, Instacart said that Everson played a “pivotal role” in turning Facebook into the second-largest digital ads platform across the globe. 

Prior to Facebook, Everson worked as Microsoft’s corporate vice president of global advertising sales and trade marketing and spent seven years at MTV Networks, where she became chief operating officer and executive vice president of U.S. ad sales. 

In her role at Instacart, Everson will oversee the company’s Retail, Business Development and Advertising businesses, as well as its People, Policy & Government Affairs, Legal, Partnerships, Instacart Pickup and Care teams. Everson will assist Chief Revenue Officer Seth Dallaire, a former Amazon and Yahoo executive who leads Instacart Ads, in developing CPG relationships, according to the company. 

Instacart said its advertising arm, which works with more than 2,500 CPG brands, is poised to be one of the fastest-growing parts of the company in the year ahead as the company looks to become one of the largest online grocery advertising platforms globally. Over the past year, Instacart has added two senior hires to its Ads business: Vice President of Ad Sales Ryan Mayward, who joined from Amazon, and Vice President of Ads Engineering Vik Gupta, previously from Google. 

Everson joins several top-level hires from Facebook, including its new CEO, chief operating officer and two vice presidents. In recent months, the company has also brought on executives who worked at other major technology companies, including Google, Amazon and Uber.

In announcing Everson’s appointment, Instacart highlighted the growing diversity of women among its executive ranks. When Everson joins, 55% of the executive leadership team will be women. Meanwhile, roughly 80% of its customer base and approximately 70% of its shopper workforce is female, the company shared. 

Ganenthiran started at Instacart in 2013 as employee No. 12, just a year after it was founded. With his upcoming transition to the strategic advisor role, he joins founder and former CEO Apoorva Mehta, who recently became executive board chairman, in moving into a new senior leadership position. In his new role, Ganenthiran will report to Simo and focus on strategies for long-term growth with retailers and advertisers.