Niklas Östberg, born in Sweden 44 years ago, is the founder and current CEO of Delivery Hero, a food delivery company that has grown exponentially in recent years. The company was founded in 2011 in Berlin, Germany, and one of its inspirations was Glovo, a similar company in the same sector.
Before founding Delivery Hero, the Swedish entrepreneur had launched an online pizza ordering platform. Today, his company is publicly traded, employs nearly 50,000 people, and he has been leading it for more than 14 years. In 2024, Uber reportedly explored the possibility of acquiring the business’s operations in Taiwan.
Education and first ventures
After completing secondary school, Östberg studied and graduated as an industrial engineer at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, later completing a Master’s degree in the same field. Once he finished his studies, he began working at Oliver Wyman, a consulting firm based in Zurich, Switzerland, where he still resides.
However, corporate life was not enough for him. In 2007, Östberg created OnlinePizza, an early version of what years later would become his global food delivery platform.
Delivery Hero
Delivery Hero entered the market in 2011, when Östberg and several co-founders sought to build a global online food-ordering platform. Australia and the United Kingdom were their first target markets, and a year later, they acquired a German company to expand their business.
Those early years were far from easy. “There were several moments when everything felt unbearable,” the Swede recalled. “Many people depended on us, and the first five or six years were the hardest.”
The turning point came when Delivery Hero went public — a milestone Östberg described as “a major event,” as the company no longer relied solely on investors. In August 2020, the firm was included in Germany’s DAX index, which represents the country’s 40 largest publicly traded companies on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Östberg described the DAX entry as “a breath of fresh air” for the index, adding, “We are a young, dynamic, diverse, and extremely international company.” Despite the initial uncertainty, he reassured investors by reminding them that even the world’s largest corporations faced similar criticism when they went public.
Growth and global impact
Two years after joining the DAX, Delivery Hero was processing more than nine million orders worldwide and had reached a market capitalization of around €26 billion. In 2021, the company acquired an 83% stake in Glovo, further strengthening its position in the global delivery industry. That same year, Östberg sold shares worth over €22 million.
The company’s success has turned Delivery Hero into a case study at Harvard University, one of the world’s most prestigious institutions. Analysts examine how Östberg’s leadership style —calm, rational, and understated— helped transform a startup into a global powerhouse. A sports enthusiast, especially passionate about skiing, the Swedish CEO continues to emphasize balance and focus in his leadership approach.
Vision and legacy
In a past interview, Östberg humbly stated that Delivery Hero was still a “small company,” while acknowledging its massive growth in recent years through public listing and inclusion in the DAX. For the engineer, the key to success lies in “speed” — an ability to move quickly in the market that he describes as being “in our DNA.”
Beyond financial success, Östberg hopes his children will one day look back and say, “My dad helped build that company.”
With that vision, the Swedish entrepreneur —now living in Switzerland and leading a German corporation— stands among the most notable global business leaders who built empires from scratch through perseverance, innovation, and commitment. Today, with millions of orders processed across continents, Delivery Hero continues to be studied as a model of entrepreneurial excellence.