Alon Rom, former shareholder and director of Mr Delivery, co-founder of Mr Delivery Express, the non food logistics arm of Mr Delivery, and shareholder of takealot.com, has been appointed as the new CEO from 1 December 2014. Supporting Rom will be the current Hellopeter.com team, which remains in place.
New shareholders include Founder Collective, a venture capital firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and co-founded by David Frankel, one of South Africa's tech leaders. As a firm, Founder Collective has made early investments in over 150 startups including consumer marketplaces such as Coupang, South Korea's largest ecommerce company and Uber, the revolutionary ridesharing service.
According to Rom, the presence of Founder Collective in the new shareholder base will provide immense benefits to the company's ecosystem. "Not only does it have a proven track record in technology investments worldwide, but it offers the ability for Hellopeter.com to leverage off the Founder Collective community."
Rom says that the platform and brand will live on under the new ownership structure and encourages South Africans to continue using the service as per usual. However, the platform will evolve, by combining the authenticity of its core offerings and values, with the launch of exciting new products and services that will significantly benefit both consumers and corporates.
The company will also launch a more user-friendly web and mobisite under a refreshed corporate identity that will integrate all social media content and in time will launch an application that will allow live interaction between consumers and corporates. Full-service marketing agency, Mustard Marketing, has been awarded the full marketing account and will manage the launch, rollout and maintenance of all these platforms.
"Being part of a consumer-centric organisation has made me realise the extreme importance of customer service in today's fast paced world. Understanding customer needs is a fundamental pillar to success.
"I am therefore excited to be involved in a business that can provide independent, valuable and credible information to help corporates understand their customers and the needs of their organisation and at the same time provide consumers a voice to far reaching audiences and connect them to great businesses.
"We have an extremely strong board and shareholder base in place that will have some exciting innovations to be introduced in due course. But for now, it is business as usual for South African consumers and corporates," concludes Rom.
