Jitse Groen Steps Down as Just Eat Takeaway CEO, Replaced by Prosus's Roberto Gandolfo
Just Eat TakeawayDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → founder Jitse GroenDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → will step down as CEO at the start of 2026, marking the end of a 25-year tenure that saw the company grow from a Dutch student project into one of Europe’s largest food-delivery platforms .
His departure follows ProsusDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → ’s €4.1 billion acquisition of JET in 2025, a deal that brought the food-delivery group under the umbrella of one of the world’s most active tech investors.
Groen will be succeeded by Roberto GandolfoDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → , currently chair of JET’s supervisory board and Prosus’s European head. Gandolfo, who previously held senior roles at Latin American delivery firm iFood, joined Prosus earlier in 2025 and is set to take over as CEO on 1 January 2026 . Prosus said the transition reflects its intention to integrate JET more closely with its wider global portfolio of e-commerce, fintech and delivery businesses.
Groen founded Takeaway.com in 2000 and spent two decades expanding the service across Europe. Under his leadership, the company expanded aggressively across Europe, growing both organically and through a series of acquisitions that helped consolidate its position in several key markets
In 2020, Takeaway merged with the UK’s Just Eat, creating one of the largest delivery platforms. A year later, Groen led the group’s $7.3 billion acquisition of Grubhub , an ambitious attempt to gain scale in the U.S. market.
The fortunes of the combined group shifted sharply after the pandemic. Demand surged during lockdowns, but growth slowed once restrictions eased, leaving JET to contend with rising competition and mounting operational costs.
The company began trimming its footprint, selling Grubhub in 2024 for a fraction of its purchase price and announcing exits from France and New Zealand. It also experimented with new verticals — including pharmacy and wellness deliveries — as it sought to steady its financial performance.
Prosus’s takeover brought a new phase for the company and effectively ends Groen’s direct leadership of the business he built. Despite recent challenges, Groen transformed a local delivery website into an international platform operating across dozens of markets.
Gandolfo now faces the task of steering JET through its next chapter under Prosus ownership, with consolidation and renewed focus on profitability expected to shape the transition.
Sources:
Just Eat Takeaway
Prosus Group
MT/Sprout
Bloomberg
Forbes
NOS
J.V.
