Choco Adds to its Executive Team with Addition of Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer

New leadership to help guide the company through continued growth and expansion to additional global markets

BERLIN and NEW YORK, June 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Choco, the technology company building a better food system for restaurants and suppliers, announced today the appointment of Kevin Huang as chief operating officer and Henri Buchsteiner as chief financial officer. Huang and Buchsteiner join the company on the heels of Choco's latest funding round that earned it unicorn status just four years after inception.

Huang comes to Choco from DoorDash, where he recently served as a vice president, focusing on international operations as well as merchant strategy. There he led Doordash's expansion outside of the U.S. while guiding development of products and services to help merchants grow on the platform. As DoorDash's ninth employee and its first general manager, he led its early market operations teams and launched the company's first markets outside of San Francisco, including Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City. 

"I'm extremely excited to join Choco as it tackles a massive and incredibly complex supply chain problem," said Huang. "The opportunity to streamline the global food system and better support suppliers, restaurateurs, chefs, and many other parties around the world is deeply inspiring, but also increasingly urgent and necessary. The Choco team has a unique combination of huge ambition and drive along with deep humility and togetherness. I'm inspired by this mission, energy, and culture and I'm honored to be a part of the journey."

Prior to joining Choco, Huang was selected to the San Francisco Business Times 40 under 40 and also worked at Slack in corporate development. Previously, he also served as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University where he earned a B.S. in industrial engineering with a minor in creative writing while also playing varsity soccer.

Buchsteiner was previously a founding member and executive director of Morgan Stanley's flexible private equity fund in New York, a team that raised and deployed c. $1.5 billion in capital since the fund's inception. There he led global investments across tech and other sectors. Prior to that role, he was a vice president in Morgan Stanley's Investment Banking Division in New York, where he executed a wide range of M&A, IPO, and financing transactions.

"I couldn't be more excited to join Choco's highly driven and talented team on its mission to build a connected global food system, addressing real world problems such as food waste and sustainability," said Buchsteiner. "Choco is in its early innings and I hope to use my experience to help the company navigate through its next phase of growth." 

Buchsteiner has a B.A. in economics from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and a Ph.D in finance from the University of Cambridge. He was a research scholar at the Bendheim Center for Finance at Princeton University and received the Oxbridge best Ph.D paper award in Finance.

"We are thrilled to have Kevin and Henri join Choco, bringing their unique skills and experience, along with their enthusiasm to help rapidly scale such an innovative company with purpose," said Daniel Khachab, chief executive officer of Choco. "Their input will be critical in guiding the company through its growth and global expansion as we seek to tackle the massive food waste problem on our planet."

For more information about Choco and its solutions, please visit Choco.com. 

About Choco 

Choco is a company that brings restaurateurs and their suppliers together on a digital platform. Ordering goods becomes as easy as writing a chat message. By optimizing purchasing processes, customers can save time, money and food. The latter is also Choco's main goal. Choco was founded by serial entrepreneurs Daniel Khachab and Julian Hammer. Since its founding in 2018, the company has grown rapidly and is now active in markets such as the U.S., Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Belgium. In February 2022, the total value of goods traded through Choco exceeded $1.2 billion.

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SOURCE Choco