Dive Brief:
- Former Verily Life Sciences and Tesla CFO Deepak Ahuja is jumping to the leadership team at logistics and delivery drone manufacturer Zipline, where he will act as the firm’s first chief business and financial officer.
- Ahuja will officially take on the combination role for the San Francisco, Calif.-based company beginning Sept. 30, according to a Sept. 9 release.
- “The company’s instant logistics solution was born out of a deep understanding of what their customers need, and has already delivered incredible value to people around the world by saving lives, time, money and reducing the environmental impact of deliveries on the planet,” Ahuja said in a statement. “It’s an exciting time for Zipline, and I’m thrilled to join the team as we keep building to offer these solutions at a massive scale.”
Dive Insight:
Prior to joining Zipline, Ahuja served as CFO for Google X precision health company Verily Life Sciences, formerly known as Google Life Sciences for two years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Before Verily, he twice served as CFO for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Tesla. Ahuja first joined the company in 2008, and acted as CFO for a a seven-year period ending in November 2015. He briefly left the company before returning in 2017, where he served as CFO for two years ending in March 2019. He has also held executive positions for the Ford Motor Company, and currently serves as a member of the board of directors for IT services and consulting group NetApp.
Ajuha will oversee Zipline’s global financial operations and global sales, excluding the Africa region, including its accounting and investor relations functions, according to the company.
The former Tesla executive joins the Zipline leadership team a time when the drone delivery manufacturer is looking to further boost its growth, moving forward with its plans for global expansion into new markets.
Zipline tripled the number of countries where it is now available, according to its Sept. 8 release, beginning in 2021 available in three countries and having expanded to four additional markets since that point.
The logistics company also announced a partnership with African e-commerce platform Jumia on Sept. 1 as it moves forward with plans for future growth. The two will collaborate to deploy an automated, on-demand delivery e-commerce service for consumers in Africa, according to the release. A pilot program for the service was launched several months prior to the release in Ghana.
“Getting deep into customer use cases and resolving their pain points fully is critical to success,” Ajuha said in a Q&A posted on Zipline’s blog in response to questions about what it will take to scale the firm’s instant logistics solutions. “I believe that ideas are a dime a dozen but to succeed you have to deliver exceptional execution. So Zipline will have to continue to be extremely focused on execution.”
Ajuha is “impressed by the ongoing pace of product development” at the company, something that will also continue to help transform quality and cost for its logistics solutions, he said in the Q&A.
Zipline declined requests to comment.
