Jason Droege, the head of Uber’s food-delivery business Uber Eats, will be leaving the company.
In a Feb. 25 regulatory filing, Uber announced that Droege will be replaced by Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, who is currently vice president of international rides, overseeing Uber’s ride-hailing operations outside North America. As Uber Eats vice president, he will oversee teams that manage the global Eats business. The change is effective immediately. Droege, who has been with Uber for six years, will be around until June to help with the transition.
As the company continues to look for profitable growth, Uber has been leaning into the Eats business. In the fourth quarter, gross bookings for Eats (pdf, p.15) rose 71% to $4.37 billion from the same quarter the prior year, well above the 20% increase for the far-larger rides business, which had $13.5 billion in gross bookings that quarter. But the rapid growth in Eats has been met with rapid losses. The Eats division, launched three years ago, lost $461 million in the last quarter.
On an earnings call earlier this month with analysts, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that Uber Eats now holds the “first or second position in well over half” of the countries where it operates, including the US, UK, France, Mexico, Japan, Australia. It sold its struggling Eats business in India to Zomato in January and exited South Korea last year.
Eats still face a long road ahead. Food delivery is more complicated than ride-hailing, as more parties are involved, and Eats has to compete in a burgeoning US food-delivery market that include companies like Grubhub, Postmates, and Doordash. Doordash currently takes the lead in all food-delivery sales, with a market share of 33%, followed by Grubhub at 32%, and Uber Eats at 19%, CNBC reported in January, citing data from analytics firm Second Measures.
Uber declined to comment beyond the statement contained in the filing, in which Khosrowshahi said:
“Jason’s vision, leadership, analytical mind and entrepreneurial spirit have been the driving force behind Eats’ incredible success, and great assets both to Uber and to me personally. As Eats moves into its next phase of more profitable growth, I am happy to have Pierre at the helm, and look forward to him applying his nearly eight years of experience with our Rides business to capture the many opportunities that lie ahead for Eats.”
Gore-Coty, who previously worked in the hedge-fund business, joined Uber in 2012 as general manager of the company’s operations in France. He then helped build Uber’s ride-hailing business across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. According to his company bio, Gore-Coty is an executive sponsor of the Women of Uber Employee Resource Group.