Ravi Gupta Joins Instacart as its First CFO

Instacart is growing rapidly and has very recently hired Ravi Gupta as its first CFO. Instacart is only three years old, and the grocery delivery service has already extended its service to 18 cities. The company is now staffed by 7,000 contract shoppers, 1,200 part-time workers and maintains 300 full-time employees.

Instacart service user

Ravi Gupta, who was announced as the first CFO of Instacart on Tuesday, said during an interview that his wife is an Instacart service user and was very excited when he told her that he was having a meeting with Apoorva Mehta, the Instacart CEO. He explained that he’s got a young family with three small boys and his wife also works. She’s been using Instacart for a year, and he said it saved them around four extra hours each week to be with their children.

Solving a real problem for many households

During his time as director in KKR, a private equity firm in New York, he also worked closely with several CFOs but he said that he did not fully serve in that role. He explained that he liked the objective of Instacart: giving a solution to a real household problem. He’s been in the company for just a few days but he said he loves working with Instacart and telling people about it and at the same time learning how people value their service –grocery shopping delivery within an hour – and the pride he feels for being part of the service.

Excitement over company’s growth

Gupta is excited about the growth potential of Instacart. Right now it is expanding into more cities, getting more partners and servicing more customers. He said they have a great team and a great group of backers who share the company’s vision and where they are headed. He said though that the move forward would not be easy but added that it is the fun part of it, because if it is going to be easy, then it would have been done already.

Company plans

As CFO, he will oversee and lead finance, strategic business plans and corporate development, which include M&A efforts, capital markets and fundraising. He wants the company to grow at the right pace and that they will maintain their capacity and ability to provide the best customer experience and service wherever they operate. Asked about the company’s plans for their contract workers, Gupta explained that they have the option to be part-time employees, thus they can focus their shoppers’ training on quality customer service, which is what helps boost the Instacart’s brand and its reputation that effectively leads to company growth.

Image credit: Instacart News