Tell us about Stuart?
Stuart is a tech-led, same-day delivery platform originally founded in Paris in 2015. We now operate in over 120 cities and deliver for over 8,000 clients. Our purpose is to serve local communities and economies with reliable, sustainable, and cost-effective deliveries, connecting couriers, merchants, and end consumers.
Stuart works with local merchants to understand their friction points and provide solutions to enable rapid and reliable delivery. We combine the strength of our European footprint, operating in the UK, France, Portugal, Spain, Poland, and Italy, with on-the-ground community knowledge and cutting-edge tech to deliver the best product possible for our customers.
What attracted you to Stuart?
I was first drawn to Stuart by its unique logistics proposition. We’re a company anchored in technology that provides business solutions for companies large and small while also having an active impact in designing the future of work. Starting out at Stuart in February 2022 as Executive Vice President of International, I was thrilled to find myself working alongside some truly inspiring people, all energised by growing the business and improving our customer journeys. When moving into the role of CEO in March 2023, I was keen to apply my knowledge of scaling and growing tech businesses to maximise my positive impact. I had a vision of a fairer exchange of value in the system and of achieving an equilibrium between merchants, couriers, and consumers.
Over the past year, I have returned to this guiding principle in challenging moments. When local communities and economies flourish, so too does the whole global ecosystem. Stuart has a powerful role to play in enacting change at a community level by supporting smaller and larger businesses. I saw it as one of my greatest opportunities to lead Stuart and actively realise this vision.
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How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?
Innovation has always been at the heart of our business, but it has been a particular priority over the last couple of years. We have expanded into new cities, improved our existing food offering, and continued to push the boundaries on faster and more sustainable deliveries in grocery and retail by investing in our technology.
We can now facilitate deliveries to our partners’ customers within 30 minutes or during a time slot of their choice. We have also leveraged machine learning in our technology to enable us to “stack” delivery orders, combining deliveries efficiently and effectively. This ensures that one courier can deliver to multiple drop-off destinations in close proximity to the same pick-up location. This allows courier partners to increase their rate of deliveries by 30% while reducing emissions by up to 18%.
This technology has the potential to be truly transformative. There is a vast amount of space for us to grow within the six countries we operate in and beyond. It also supports our wider journey towards being ultra-local, connecting high-street shops with the people in their communities. I am committed to continuing to develop Stuart’s technology and harnessing all that these innovations have to offer.
What can we hope to see from Stuart in the future?
In today’s modern marketplace, it is crucial that we intimately understand the complex challenges facing businesses. To remain competitive, we must continue to meet and exceed consumers’ increasingly high expectations for affordable, precise, and sustainable delivery. This can be especially challenging for SMEs, who often have comparably fewer resources and less infrastructure at their disposal than bigger brands. We want to ensure that what is accessible to big brands can be adapted to better serve smaller retailers who have historically been overlooked.
These are very exciting times. Our steady focus is on being the best-in-class partner for same-day urban delivery. So far, we are a market leader in the same-day grocery and food delivery segment, and this year will see us prioritise further innovation. With the backing of our new shareholder Mutares, we hope to continue to grow, improve, and evolve our offering while remaining at the forefront of tech solutions in the last-mile delivery space.
