Dive Brief:

• Food delivery service DoorDash announced Thursday that its current CFO Prabir Adarkar will move to the chief operating officer and president roles, while its VP of finance and strategy Ravi Inukonda will take on the role of finance chief.
• Meanwhile, DoorDash’s present COO and president, Christopher Payne is retiring from the company. Payne will stay on for a transition period before retiring at the end of May, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Both moves are effective March 1.
• The C-suite shuffle comes after the San Francisco, Calif.-based firm reported a net loss that widened to $642 million for the fourth quarter compared to a $155 million net loss in the year-earlier period, even as revenue increased by 40% to $1.8 billion for the period ending Dec. 31, 2022, according to the company’s earnings results. It also reported a bump in sales, with orders rising by 27% to 467 million. 

Dive Insight:

Adarkar has served as the company’s CFO for four years, first joining the company in 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile. Prior to making the move to DoorDash, he served as the head of strategic finance for rideshare company Uber between 2015 and 2018 and held a variety of executive positions for Goldman Sachs.

Inukonda, his successor, has had a similar career trajectory — the two had overlapping tenures at Uber, where Inukonda served as the head of finance for the rideshare’s Uber Eats offering, before joining DoorDash alongside Adarkar in 2018. Inukonda also logged time at Goldman Sachs as an associate in the investing banking, tech, media and telecom space for the bank, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Both executives have “mastered every aspect” of DoorDash’s business during their four years with the company, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said Thursday during the company’s earnings call, noting that the company has always had a “high quality leadership team but “nonetheless, everyone in our team has a succession plan,” he said.

“We knew that [Christopher Payne] wouldn't always be here, and we've been ready for this possibility for some time,” Xu said during the call. “And we're always developing our bench of talent as well as our systems and processes so that the right people can step up when ready.”

There will be no changes to Adarkar’s employment arrangements or compensations associated with the move to COO and president at this time, according to the SEC filing. For the full year 2021, Adarkar’s base salary as CFO was $350,000, according to the company’s proxy statement filed May 2, 2022. He also received an equity grant of $9.3 million for the full year, according to the proxy.

DoorDash attributed the fourth quarter loss in part to expenses associated with its acquisition of fellow food delivery company Wolt, as well as expenses associated with company layoffs in November. The company cut about 6% of its workforce or 1,250 employees, The Wall Street Journal reported.

For its current quarter, DoorDash expects marketplace gross order volume of between $15.1 billion to $15.5 billion, the company said, as well as adjusted EBITDA of between $120 million to $170 million.

DoorDash is one of several firms to appoint new financial leadership in recent weeks, including aerospace firm Airbus, clothing retailer ASOS and retail firm Yeti, the latter of which also tapped an internal candidate for the role. The seller of coolers and other outdoor gear appointed Mike McMullen as its permanent CFO, it announced Thursday. McMullen had served as interim CFO since October, having joined the company in 2016 as its head of financial planning before being becoming VP of finance. 

DoorDash declined to offer comment beyond its Thursday announcements.