San Francisco, Calif.-based retail marketplace Flashfood announced Nov. 4 that Yixin Zhu has joined the company as vice president of engineering. With more than a decade of experience building high-performing engineering organizations, Zhu will oversee the future of Flashfood’s data program to lead the company’s AI efforts.
“Yixin’s leadership background at disruptive companies and depth of technical skills are a perfect match for where Flashfood is headed,” says Jordan Schenck, Flashfood CEO. “The AI-powered products we’re developing enable us to move upstream from what we solve today, to address the billion-dollar opportunity in grocery inventory. Yixin’s expertise in designing best-in-class technology to solve complex systems will help us transform the way retailers operate.”
Zhu joins Flashfood from Archer, where he served as senior director of product engineering, leading teams that built software products for the emerging air mobility industry. He operated with a data-first mindset to create innovative products at the intersection of technology’s biggest applications: Transportation, manufacturing, defense, energy and AI.
Prior to Archer, Zhu spent five years leading technical program management at Uber, leading a global team of over 500 engineers to build the marketplace technology for all of Uber’s core products, including Eats, Rider and Driver, the systems that powered Uber’s multi-vertical last-mile delivery ecosystem.
“Flashfood sits at a point in our retail food system that’s seen less innovation than any other part of the chain. As an engineer, this is a very exciting place to be,” Zhu says. “Not only do we have the opportunity to build a solution that feeds the world, but we will completely change the way retailers manage their shrink and inventory today. By enabling retailers to be much more data-centric and leverage all the latest advancements in machine learning and AI, we’ll be able to bring in more shoppers, more revenue and ultimately more value for Flashfood’s retail partners.”
