Leading online food platform Deliveroo has appointed Laura Huddle as Head of Commercial in Australia, as the platform continues to invest in building a strong and experienced local leadership team.

Laura joins Deliveroo after more than nine years at event technology platform, Eventbrite, where she joined as employee #20 and held multiple roles including Head of Sales & Business Development for Asia Pacific and Head of Marketing – Australia & New Zealand.

Laura will oversee Deliveroo’s relationship with the more than 11,000 restaurants on the platform in Australia, as well as focus on growing the number of restaurants with whom Deliveroo partners. The appointment comes as Deliveroo continues to massively expand the restaurants on its platform, having more than doubled the number of partner restaurants in the past 12 months.

Laura Huddle said: “This is an incredibly exciting time to be joining Deliveroo, a company that is focused on transforming the way people think about and experience their favourite foods. Partnering with and enabling the success of Australia’s best and most-loved restaurants is key to this.”

“There’s no doubt that the traditional restaurant sector is changing as consumers are looking for both the convenience of on-demand food delivery and an amazing dine-in experience. I’ll be focusing on ensuring that Deliveroo can best position our partner restaurants to succeed across both.”

Merten Wulfert, Managing Director APAC of Deliveroo, said: “We couldn’t be more excited to be adding Laura to an already strong leadership team in Australia. Laura is a proven tech expert and brings more than a decade of product, marketing, and sales experience in leading roles across both Australia and San Francisco, where she’s worked at the heart of the world’s start-up sector for Eventbrite, University of California Berkeley, and Myspace.

“We can’t wait to see how Laura drives engagement, strategy, and growth with our restaurant partners who are at the centre of our business in Australia.”

During her time at Eventbrite, Laura opened the Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong  markets, drove experimentation within the small and medium business segment, and led APAC sales to achieve globe-leading performance.

In the past 12 months, Deliveroo has introduced a range of industry-leading features designed to maximise restaurant growth. Last year, Deliveroo introduced Marketplace+, a feature that allows small takeaway restaurants with their own delivery service to join Deliveroo and also make use of the company’s 8,000-strong rider network. Deliveroo has also introduced a Restaurant Perks program which provides restaurants with discount access to essential business services from select partners including Tyro and Sidekicker.

This year Deliveroo also became the first food delivery platform in Australia to introduce a subscription service for customers, Deliveroo Plus, driving greater customer loyalty and growth for restaurant partners.

Laura’s appointment comes after two major hires for Deliveroo earlier this year: Joanne Woo as Head of Corporate Affairs and Jeremy Brook as Head of Marketing in Australia.

About Deliveroo

In Australia, Deliveroo has a network of over 8,000 riders and works with 11,000 of the country’s best-loved restaurants across 13 cities - including Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Perth and Canberra - to bring great-tasting food straight to people’s front doors.

Deliveroo is an award-winning delivery service founded in 2013 by William Shu and Greg Orlowski. Deliveroo works with over 80,000 best-loved restaurants, as well as 50,000 riders to provide the best food delivery experience in the world.  Deliveroo is headquartered in London, with 2,500 employees in offices around the globe.

Deliveroo operates in over 500 towns and cities across 14 markets, including Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.