Join us for a live taping of Chicago Founders' Stories at 1871, Chicago's Digital Startup Hub! The June 7 event will feature Peapod Founders Thomas and Andrew Parkinson, along with an Opening Acts segment with ItemMaster, which was incubated inside of Peapod.
This event has ended.
Chicago Founders' Stories, the cornerstone program of our Chicago Founders' TV series, showcases conversations with the most interesting and accomplished founders in Chicago. We tape the series before a live audience at 1871 over pizza and beer.
Each episode features a new Chicago founder. Creator and host Pat Ryan hears their true story, and explores it as only two founders having a conversation together can. We examine topics like where the idea came from, their background in entrepreneurship and technology, achieving product/market fit, getting liquidity, two-sided networks, raising venture capital, scaling, and more.
About Andrew Parkinson:
As co-founder and CEO of Peapod, Andrew Parkinson had overall responsibility for running Peapod LLC, an online grocery shopping and delivery service. He and his brother Thomas founded Peapod in 1989, took the company public in 1997, and sold it to Ahold in 2001. Peapod is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Ahold. Peapod currently has revenues of about $700 million and over 5,000 associates (commonly referred to as Podsters).
Andrew is currently CFO and co-founder of ItemMaster, Inc., a content-as- a- service provider to the consumer package goods and grocery retail industry. ItemMaster is a privately held company spun out of Peapod in April, 2016.
About Thomas Parkinson:
Thomas Parkinson co-founded Peapod with his brother, Andrew, in 1989 when he was 29 with $50,000 in seed money from friends and family.
Delivering groceries via the computer, Peapod is the pioneer of e- commerce, being the first in the world. It maintains its leadership as the largest e-grocer in the country serving the Midwest and the East coast.
As Sr. Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, he is responsible for Peapod’s web and mobile product development, IT infrastructure, supply chain systems and R&D.
Today, Thomas is also a co-founder of ItemMaster, Inc.
Schedule:
5:30-5:45 Arrivals, networking, food & drinks
5:45-6:00 Opening Acts featuring Itemmaster
6:00-7:00 Moderated discussion with Andrew and Thomas Parkinson, followed by Q+A
7:00-7:30 Networking
