Niklas Ostberg co-founded Delivery Hero in Berlin in 2011. He grew it into one of the biggest food delivery firms on earth. Now, after 15 years in the top job, he is on the way out.
A fund with a 15% stake pushed for the change.
The firm said Tuesday its CEO will step down once the board picks a new boss. The hard cutoff is March 31, 2027, with a target of a name by year-end. The board will start the search now.
The fund behind the push is called Aspex Management. It built its stake to about 15% over time. Earlier, it had asked the firm to leave whole regions and to swap out the CEO. Now it backs the move.
In short, Aspex won the fight without going public.
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The firm has been picking apart its own setup for more than a year. In 2025 it said it was looking at how it spends cash and which parts to keep, after big owners pushed for change.
The food delivery space has had a rough run. Thin margins, slow post-pandemic growth, and rising labor costs have all hit the books. Big names across the sector have spent the past two years cutting back to chase profit.
Ostberg will not just hand off the keys. He plans to run the review and any deals until a new CEO walks in. That puts the founder in charge of moves that could reshape the firm he built.
Activist fights in Europe used to drag on for years. This one wrapped in months. Aspex went from quiet owner to the loudest voice on the firm's plan.
The lesson runs bigger than one stock. A 15% stake and a clear ask was enough to push out a founder at a top European name.
The same script that drives fights at US firms like Disney and Salesforce now works in Europe too. That gives boards more to think about and gives funds a new playbook to copy.
The next clue is who the board picks. An operator points to a leaner firm. A dealmaker points to parts of it going up for sale.
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