Skip the headhunters; new CEO delivered from within

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This article was published 18/11/2022 (1022 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SkipTheDishes has a new CEO.

Howard Migdal, who has been in the industry for 16 years, the last four as Skip’s chief operating officer, is taking over from Kevin Edwards who is retiring.

Migdal is one of the pioneers in the food delivery business, having co-founded a company called Grub Canada in 2008.

That business was acquired by Just Eat in 2011, a year before SkipTheDishes was founded in Winnipeg.

(London-based Just Eat acquired SkipTheDishes in 2016. It merged with Amsterdam-based Takeaway.com in 2020 to form Just Eat Takeaway.com ).

Edwards led the company through an intense growth period as it established itself as a well-known brand with high profile sponsorships with the NHL and catchy celebrity-driven ads featuring Jon Hamm and more recently Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg.

Migdal has been based in Toronto and a company spokesperson said he will be splitting his time between Toronto and Winnipeg.

“I’m thrilled to be leading our incredible team into the next phase of Canadian delivery,” Migdal said in an email exchange with the Free Press. “As we look to the future, our team is poised to help restaurants and local businesses thrive in today’s on-demand economy and we plan to continue leveraging our technology to bring more advanced delivery options to Canadians across the country.”

His appointment comes two months after the company laid off 350 people from its Winnipeg operations.

At the time, the company said the layoffs were part of its “global logistics” workforce. Some industry observers have suggested those layoffs might have been partly necessitated after an intense workforce build up to handle explosive growth in the food delivery business during the pandemic. But since then consumers have chosen to eat out more often, something they could not do during the social distancing mandates.

The company has not given any signals regarding its staffing requirements in the near future. The company became one of Winnipeg’s job-creation superstars over its 10-year life span to date, growing to more than 2,000 employees in the city.

Migdal may also have to deal with a potential on-going class action on behalf of the company’s delivery drivers.

In September a Manitoba Court of King’s Bench ruling paved the way for the next step in what could be a lengthy legal battle focused on the consequences of Canada’s “gig economy.”

The company’s thousands of delivery drivers currently deliver meals from 47,000 restaurants across the country.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca