This Is Gorillas: Moritz Hoffmann, International Marketplace & Revenue Growth
Situated between Commercial and Product sits the team at Gorillas responsible for e-commerce and platform management. In today’s #ThisIsGorillas series we catch up with Moritz Hoffmann, Head of International Marketplace & Revenue Growth. Moritz tells us about his journey into the food industry, why he joined Gorillas, and how he keeps his team aligned in a constantly changing environment. Plus, we find out which Netflix film Moritz can be spotted in, along with his top tip for preparing the best wild broccoli side dish.
Hi Moritz! Please tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m originally from a small town in western Germany called Gladbeck. In 2011 I went to study and work abroad, living in six countries across Asia, Australia, and Europe, before returning to Germany and settling in Berlin in 2018. I’ve always been interested in the brand side of consumer business, and I love to see people connecting to a service or product on an emotional level.
I’ve been immersed in the Food & Beverage world for the last few years, first working for an investor in the industry, then with Deliveroo, B2B Food Group, and most recently with Domino’s Pizza Europe, where I was leading their European Platform Business & project management office.
You're based at Gorillas' main headquarters in Berlin. What’s your favourite thing about the city?
Apart from being able to do anything you want, at any time (except for groceries on Sundays), more importantly it’s that anyone can be anything they want. The city itself, and the communities that have emerged within it, really create an atmosphere for an individual to run free, express themselves and live out however and whoever one wants to be.
What attracted you to join Gorillas?
I noticed that innovation in food retail had become stagnant, and from my own experience I’ve felt previous grocery delivery services were not very consumer-focused. For me it was easy to get behind Gorillas’ vision of giving customers the freedom to decide on-demand when they want to purchase, enabling access to everyday goods in a qualitative manner with a strong 360° service process. It all comes back to a classic German saying “Der Kunde ist König” (The Customer is King).
How is your team organized?
The International Marketplace & Revenue Growth team leads our global e-commerce initiatives and partner solutions by covering three main areas:
- Giving customers a voice internally by implementing actions based on data. We sit in the commercial universe but work closely with the Product & Data teams to test, build and iterate our customer app, introduce new features and functions for what we believe will have the biggest business impact, all the way from product labelings up to our search engine. Generally providing commercial analytics to increase overall range competence and how items end up being merchandised on the app.
- Establishing Gorillas as the retailer of choice for our suppliers by ensuring we are seen not just as another buyer but as a true partner providing services & tools addressed to their needs. This also includes our Promotion & Trade Marketing efforts as well as advertising & data solutions.
- Commercial operations including managing our full product lifecycle, internal system & process development for data & back-office management as well as buying administration
What are some of the ways that you and your team are building strong relationships with our suppliers?
For many suppliers, Gorillas is still a fairly new distribution channel, so we offer different marketing packages based on their goals, and co-create test & learn initiatives so they can get a better understanding of what will work best for them. Our goal is to provide them with a comprehensive understanding of how consumers interact with their brands via our platform to enable them to best position themselves.
We have a mixed unit with diverse backgrounds and nationalities, so everyone brings a unique point of view and perspective. Translating these world views into real products and services together with our tech teams is a lot of fun.
What’s the best part about your role?
Ultimately it’s the people I get to work with in my team. We have a mixed unit with diverse backgrounds and nationalities, so everyone brings a unique point of view and perspective. Translating these world views into real products and services together with our tech teams is a lot of fun. On top of this, I really enjoy working with our buying teams to discover new products that might end up on the app, and digging through the product sampling area with my team.
And the most challenging?
Think about the metaphor of building the airport whilst the plane is already taking off. It’s much like that. So of course a lot of infrastructure is not as it would be in an established, centuries-old business. This makes it very interesting to be here right now and contribute to the development of these processes and structures.
As a leader, how do you keep your team motivated and aligned through this constant growth?
With the speed the company is growing, new areas and topics are arising all the time and I’m aiming to set up my teams to be their own entrepreneurs and owners of their respective topics with end-to-end responsibility. I give them the freedom to become the domain experts and empower them to give recommendations and implement directly. I act to set the overall vision, clear out any roadblocks, and launch new initiatives.
From your perspective, what type of person would do well working at Gorillas?
People with a great mix of ambition, attitude, motivation and skill, as well as a get things done mindset. At our current stage it’s important that you’re comfortable making decisions without having 100% of the information, and then iterate and adjust once things are rolling.
Let's play a round of Fast Facts. Tell us the first thing that comes to mind...
- What’s something we don’t know about you: I used to do a bit of acting, so you might spot me in a children’s movie on Netflix
- What’s it called? Vorstadtkrokodile 3
- When I’m not working, you’ll find me: Cooking. Especially complex dishes that require more time in the kitchen
- My favourite thing to order from Gorillas: Our fresh wild broccoli. It’s a delicious Italian grown variation, and quite rare to find in most retailers
🥦 Moritz’s Tip: Slightly pan-fry together with a bit of lemon zest and it becomes the perfect side dish - One thing I love: Football. I’m a big fan and a supporter of (probably the best club in the world) FC Schalke 04
Last but not least, what excites you about the future?
There are still so many things left to build, where we haven’t even touched 1% of it yet. Getting to work on these things, while also developing the team and seeing them step up is what excites me the most. That, and our next team karaoke night.
Our thanks to Moritz for sharing his #ThisIsGorillas story with us. If you’re interested in joining the team and contributing to Gorillas’ growth story, check out our open job opportunities below.