How Delivery Hero and HelloFresh Built Different Ops and Tech Leadership, Despite Similar Roots
Delivery Hero and HelloFresh created a talent legacy that now reaches across European consumer tech, far beyond food.
Delivery Hero and HelloFresh share similar roots. Both were launched in 2011. Both were born in Berlin. Both were incubated by the startup factory Rocket Internet. Both operate in FoodTech. Both went public in 2017.
Their business models, however, are different: Delivery Hero is a global logistics platform connecting consumers to local restaurants and shops via an on-demand marketplace, while HelloFresh is a vertically integrated DTC brand that designs, sources, and delivers subscription-based meal kits and ready-to-eat meals.
We wanted to see if that difference says something about how they structure and hire ops & tech leadership. To answer that, we mapped every current and former ops & tech leader from Head to C-level across Europe. In total, we identified 239 individuals at Delivery Hero and 333 at HelloFresh.
We also spoke with Francisco Javier Sánchez Fernández, Director of Product, Data & ML/AI Platforms at Delivery Hero. He owns the vision, strategy, and execution of Delivery Hero’s global Data and ML/AI capabilities. A former HelloFresh ops leader also contributed anonymously. He oversaw delivering the company’s promise to customers.
When did their ops & tech leaders join the company?
We found that both Delivery Hero and HelloFresh experienced their biggest hiring waves in 2021-2022. The pandemic-era capital boom clearly benefitted both companies, as they made important investments during that period: 25% of ops & tech leadership hires at Delivery Hero and 31.5% at HelloFresh happened in those two years alone.
But in 2024, both companies saw their highest wave of departures amid the post-pandemic correction and the broader tech downturn.
Ops vs. tech leadership at Delivery Hero and HelloFresh
Delivery Hero leans more toward tech leadership (68.4%) than ops leadership (31.6%)
Since 2024, the company has been moving from a decentralised house of brands model to a single unified platform to (1) reduce data fragmentation and (2) build a more streamlined, data-driven organisation.
A single platform drives efficiency and allows Delivery Hero to roll out new AI products and features simultaneously across all local markets. And we found that Data Science, AI, and ML roles account for 17.5% of Delivery Hero’s tech leadership positions.
They’re working on (1) embedding ML with product and engineering, (2) modernising MLOps to increase experiment speed, enabling data scientists to launch experiments autonomously, and (3) integrating centrally built search capabilities across multiple regional platforms.
Delivery Hero’s approach points to the next competitive frontier for marketplace and platform businesses. Success will depend on how well a platform can predict and respond to consumer behaviour, rather than on logistics or selection.
HelloFresh leans more toward ops leadership (66.9%) than tech leadership (33.1%)
HelloFresh’s business is built on physical production. Unlike Delivery Hero, it controls the entire value chain. The company also runs an ops division called Upstream, led by Tilman Eichstädt, that handles everything before the food reaches the fulfilment centres.
According to the former ops leader we spoke with, HelloFresh wasn’t centralised until 2024. Its European setup was split by market. Each region had its own COO, along with separate ops leaders doing similar work across different markets.
They described this as a legacy of how the company grew over time. But as the business expanded, it created tension between markets. It became harder to apply the same operating standards when each region was running in its own way.
Around 2024-2025, HelloFresh began to centralise and standardise operations under Mark Hemming, COO International. They also ceased operations in the Spanish and Italian markets. Our data confirms that HelloFresh moved away from its earlier reliance on regional COOs for local operational decisions. Many of these leaders either left the company or moved into broader internal ops roles, such as Thomas Stroo – now SVP Ops Europe.
While we identified fewer AI & Data Science profiles than at Delivery Hero, HelloFresh does rely on Patrick Gunia, VP AI and ML, to apply AI to customer value optimisation, communications and CRM marketing.
Where do Delivery Hero and HelloFresh source ops & tech leadership?
Across both organisations, the main feeder companies are Zalando and Amazon. The Berlin talent network that connects Rocket Internet, Zalando, Delivery Hero, and HelloFresh alumni has become a real source of scaling experience for European consumer companies. And knowing how to tap into that network is a competitive advantage.
We also found that HelloFresh has hired heavily from Delivery Hero, and 66.6% of those hires are tech profiles. One example is Michael Mayer, now Associate Director of Data Science at HelloFresh, previously Head of Data Science at Delivery Hero.
Interestingly, HelloFresh is 2.8x more likely than Delivery Hero to hire leaders from FMCG and retail. According to the former ops leader we spoke with, HelloFresh operates more like a Food Retailer than a FoodTech company. For ops roles, the company brings in leaders with supply chain and logistics expertise. For tech roles, it looks for talent with experience in consumer data and customer insights.
However, when it comes to FoodTech backgrounds, Delivery Hero has hired ~3x more leaders with prior FoodTech experience than HelloFresh. Its talent pool includes profiles from Careem, Uber Eats, Grubhub, or CloudKitchens, as well as leaders who previously worked at Foodora, Glovo, or PedidosYa before Delivery Hero acquired those companies.
Two companies, same city, same year, same incubator, yet very different structures. Between them, they created a talent legacy that now reaches across European consumer tech, far beyond food. Our data shows how they built and sourced leadership in a post-correction consumer market.
Both companies trained a large pool of ops and tech talent who know how to scale complex, high-growth businesses. You can now see this talent across the ecosystem: Wolt, Gorillas, Flink, Just Eat, Choco, and Getir.
And it goes further. Former Delivery Hero and HelloFresh talent are hired by other marketplaces/e-commerce companies such as Enpal and GetYourGuide; B2B SaaS companies like Personio and Parloa; and even DeepTech startups like Helsing. Their influence extends well beyond meal kits and food delivery.
Thank you, Francisco Javier Sánchez Fernández, HelloFresh’s former ops leader, for contributing!
This report was compiled in collaboration with the Consumer Practice at The Big Search. If you’re interested in leadership and talent trends, looking to hire a Consumer leader, or simply want to discuss the findings, feel free to reach out: sahar@thebigsearch.com or Sahar Powell (PhD).
Want to see how we can support your search? Visit our website to explore our services and learn what we can do for you.