Meal delivery business Providoor appoints eBay boss Tim MacKinnon as its new CEO

Celebrity chef Shane Delia started his food delivery business Providoor to survive Covid-19, and has now convinced eBay boss Tim MacKinnon to see his global expansion dreams are realised.

Shane Delia has scored quite “a coup” in attracting the eBay Australia boss to lead his food delivery start-up Providoor. Picture: Jay Town

Fine-dining restaurant meal delivery platform Providoor, founded by celebrity chef Shane Delia at the start of Covid-19, has scored a major corporate coup by poaching eBay Australia and New Zealand boss Tim MacKinnon to be its next chief executive as it bulks up to take on the $10 billion global meal kits sector.

Mr MacKinnon has chosen to step away from eBay, one of the largest online marketplaces in the world, to take on the leading role at start-up Providoor as it prepares to launch into Brisbane later this year after forging a booming business in Melbourne and Sydney that has delivered half a million meals since the pandemic began.

He will be handed an ambitious growth agenda by founder and restaurateur Mr Delia who wants to take Providoor and its platform of delivering meal kits from well-known and fine dining restaurants overseas.

Providoor has grown rapidly through the pandemic to now has 16 full-time staff and an outsourced customer service team of 10.

Mr MacKinnon had first met Mr Delia through a mutual friend and for the last 12 months he has been providing advice to Providoor as it built up its online platform and helped the meal delivery business launch in Sydney.

Mr Delia said he realised Mr MacKinnon was giving up a high powered, and well remunerated, job at eBay to join the meal kit start-up but that he offered a competitive deal to win him over.

“It was a very enticing package that we offered Tim, we were aggressive in going after him and we know he was a high powered c-suite executive and we couldn’t just offer him hopes and dreams but a good base with significant upside if our goals are achieved. We don't just see him as a CEO, we wanted to partner with him.”

Tim MacKinnon. Picture: Britta Campion

Mr Delia, part chef, part entrepreneur, kickstarted Providoor at the outbreak of Covid-19 as a ‘rescue plan’ for his famous Melbourne restaurant Maha but it has quickly become a major player in Australia’s meal kit sector, valued at around $400 million, with 70 restaurants on its platform delivering tens of thousands of meals a week.

Now it will supercharge its growth plans with the hiring of the 10-year eBay veteran Mr MacKinnon who has told his staff on Friday of his decision to leave the online marketplace to take up the CEO role at Providoor.

“Firstly for me, I’ve been deeply involved in marketplaces for a long time and I have seen the power of marketplaces transform industries from e-commerce to travel, Airbnb to commuting like Uber, to mass food delivery, he said.

“I believe the marketplace model has a huge roll to play in changing the way people eat great food and Providoor is at the forefront of this space.

“Providoor has had incredible trajectory and in the last 18 months has served well over 500,000 meals to Australians in Melbourne and Sydney, but I am also excited about its potential to change the way that people eat, their access to home quality food from Australia’s best restaurants and ultimately globally.”

Chef and entrepreneur Shane Delia in his Melbourne restaurant where he operates Providoor, an upmarket food delivery service. Picture: Aaron Francis

Mr Delia described his ability to attract Mr MacKinnon to leave eBay and join his business as a “bit of a coup” for a company he started at the beginning of Covid-19 to help generate customers for his Maha restaurant.

“We have ambitions to be a global delivery platform and so we need a global player, we want to create a world class team.

“I’m a chef, I’m a restaurateur, I’m a founder of Providoor and my skills set is based on customer experience and relationships.

“We want a meal delivery experience that exceeds expectations and we are building a world class marketplace team and we have been really lucky to now partner with someone like Tim.

“Tim is a world-class operator, he has got a resume that blows the doors of most people and it is a bit of a coup to have him, the CEO of one of the biggest marketplaces in the world to come to a start-up shows a lot of faith and for me just reaffirms what we are doing and the belief that this isn’t just a flash in the pan. It is not a pandemic cure, we really do believe this is something that is helping restaurants to revolutionise their business.”