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Vivino appoints Olivier Grémillon as new CEO
Wine e-commerce platform Vivino has appointed French-born former Airbnb executive Olivier Grémillon as its new CEO, who will replace Heini Zachariassen.
Grémillon, 41, will take over from Vivino’s co-founder and current CEO, Heini Zachariassen, on 26 July, with Heini staying on as the company’s ‘chief evangelist’ and a member of the board.
Based in Copenhagen, Grémillon, a Harvard Business School graduate, will lead Vivino’s global expansion and marketplace growth, capitalising on its status as the world’s most downloaded mobile wine app.
“This is the perfect moment to join Vivino. With the collective power of 50 million people who share a curiosity about wine, now is the time to lead the revolutionary change taking place in wine buying habits,” Grémillon said.
“With ten years of data collected from nearly two billion wine label scans and hundreds of millions of unbiased reviews and ratings, no one is better placed than Vivino to bring wine drinkers of the world closer to the wines they love,” he added.
Grémillon began his career as a project manager at Deloitte, and spent six years working for Airbnb as its managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Most recently, he was the global head of Booking Home – the alternative accommodations business unit of Booking.com, where he was responsible for driving growth in an increasingly competitive market segment of the travel and hospitality industry.
“As this past year clearly shifted consumer habits to purchasing more wine online, it felt like the right time to bring in a new leader with the skills and experience to take our business to the next stage in its development and accelerate our growth from where we are today,” Zachariassen said.
“Olivier is bringing years of success and experience to Vivino that will allow for even more consumers to buy wine through our marketplace with the confidence that they are getting the best possible wine for their specific taste,” he added.
Christophe Navarre, Vivino’s chairman of the board, is looking forward to the fresh perspective the firm’s new CEO will bring. “Heini has steadfastly led Vivino for a decade, and we are very grateful for his continued leadership at the company.
“Olivier’s appointment brings a fresh perspective to the business that is grounded in community and will help propel Vivino’s presence as the go-to resource for all things wine worldwide,” he said.
Vivino was created in 2010 by Zachariassen and Theis Søndergaard, who wanted to take the guesswork out of choosing wine and make it more accessible.
Since then the wine recommendation app has built a following of 50 million people, along with a successful wine e-commerce platform in partnership with over 700 merchants worldwide.
In February the company raised US$155 million in Series D funding to propel additional growth and market expansion. In 2020 Vivino achieved US$265m in wine sales.
Vivino’s users have scanned over 1.6 billion wine labels, written 72 million reviews, and given 204 million ratings on 13.5 million bottles of wine. Click here for an in-depth look at how Vivino is shaping the future of wine retail.