Vivino names new CEO

Published: 03 June, 2021

Vivino has named Olivier Grémillon as the company’s new CEO, taking over from co-founder Heini Zachariassen.

Taking on his new role on 26 July, Grémillon brings extensive market platforms experience with him, having spend three years at booking.com and six years at Airbnb, both at executive level.

Zachariassen, who co-founded Vivino 10 years ago with Theis Søndergaard, will stay on as board member and ‘chief evangelist’.

“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,” said Zachariassen.

Christophe Navarre, Vivino’s chairman, added: “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.”

Grémillon said now was “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.

“With 10 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 said.

In addition to attracting a community of more than 50 million people, Vivino also connects its community to more than 700 merchants in 17 international markets to purchase wine.

As of February 2021, the company raised a $155M Series D round to propel additional growth and market expansion, with the e-commerce marketplace having experienced its most substantial growth during the pandemic lockdown, resulting in $265M worth of wine sold in 2020.