Fidji Simo

40 under 40-2021 Fidji Simo
Courtesy of Christie Hemm Klok/Instacart
  • Age
    35
  • Title
    CEO
  • Company
    Instacart

The daughter of a French fisherman is taking over a very different type of food business. Fidji Simo in August became CEO of pandemic darling Instacart, the grocery-delivery startup with a $39 billion private valuation and expectations of going public. After 10 years at Facebook, where she was most recently head of the Facebook App (and one of the social-media giant’s most senior female executives), Simo is reuniting with some of her former colleagues at Instacart, and forming a majority-female executive team. Now they are trying to maintain Instacart’s growth—and remain competitive in the cutthroat delivery-service sector—by bulking up its advertising business.