Bolt
Vertical CPO, Bolt Delivery
Took a three-sided food and grocery marketplace to full profitability at €1.5B+ GMV.
- €1.5B+GMV run-rate at full profitability
- +600 bpscontribution margin expansion
- −30%unit operational cost with production ML
- −25%late orders
Led product for the Food & Grocery vertical across 16 countries and owned the product and technology investment case within the vertical P&L.
The situation
Food and grocery delivery is a business that clears three to five percent margin on a good day. Bolt Delivery had scale across 16 countries. The mandate was to turn that scale into a business that pays for itself, without losing growth.
What I did
- Ran every investment against one filter: the shortest path to profitability. Established ROI-based portfolio governance that held R&D to a 3x+ return bar.
- Shipped AI directly to merchants: a generative menu builder and optimizer, a key-account agent that read each merchant’s performance and returned specific actions to grow sales, and automated resolution of refund and delivery complaints.
- Put production ML across the logistics stack: dispatch and route optimization, multi-level demand forecasting matching courier supply to order demand, and entrance-door detection.
- Re-engineered growth: moved spend from blanket subsidies to precision-targeted incentives, built growth loops, and upgraded CRM and lifecycle capabilities for profitable frequency and retention.
What changed
The vertical reached fully loaded profitability at a €1.5B+ GMV run-rate, contribution margin expanded by 600 basis points, unit operational costs fell 30% and late orders fell 25%.
What I took from it
In thin-margin marketplaces, AI earns its keep in the unglamorous places: dispatch, forecasting, support. The demo-friendly features matter less than the ones that move cost-to-serve.