Dive Brief:

• Gorillas has appointed Deena Fox, a former Amazon and Jet human resources executive, as its chief people officer, according to a news release on Wednesday. Fox began working for the company on Aug. 1.
• Fox will be based in New York, Insider reported, where she will oversee all aspects of the company’s culture and global human resources strategy. 
• Gorillas has quickly grown to more than 10,000 workers in just a year and said it’s time to focus on further developing its culture and personnel infrastructure.

Dive Insight:

With this executive hire, Gorillas is making a statement about both its growth and its company culture.

Among the mob of ultrafast delivery startups, Gorillas wants to show investors and consumers that it has evolved into a fully functioning company with an expanding c-suite. At the same time, it wants to show that it cares about the wellbeing of its labor force in an industry that’s not known for doing so.

Unlike Instacart and DoorDash, Gorillas and other ultrafast delivery firms rely on hourly employees to shuttle orders to customers. This is in part out of necessity, since the industry’s model of delivering a high volume of orders within a tight radius around its urban dark stores requires a precise, company-controlled labor flow.

Prior to her latest appointment, Fox was founder and CEO of BrightFox, a “talent experience platform” focused on employee engagement and communications. She was also chief people officer at Jet before Walmart acquired it in 2016 and at health insurance startup Oscar, according to her LinkedIn profile. She was also a human resources director at Amazon and vice president of human resources for the Americas at Hugo Boss.

In its announcement, Gorillas said Fox has worked at companies spanning multiple stages of development, including preparation for an IPO.

Since its founding last year, the 10-minute delivery firm has expanded to more than 50 cities across Europe and raised more than $300 million in funding. In May, it began operating in New York City, where it’s now delivering groceries in parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Other fast-delivery companies like Jokr and 1520 have also begun operating in the city, making it an early battleground in the U.S. for the emerging service.

Job listings show Gorillas is planning to expand to many more neighborhoods in New York, as well as cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.