Ryan Cohen

In 2011, at the age of 25, Cohen founded Chewy under its original name of MrChewy.[6] Cohen says his inspiration for picking the pet category came from his experience shopping for his poodle Tylee.[7] He cites his father Ted, who ran a glassware importing business, as a mentor.[8][9] In need of capital, Cohen says he originally approached over 100 venture capital firms and was rejected by all of them.[10][11] In 2013, Cohen secured the company's first outside investment from Volition Capital for $15 million.[12] By 2016, he had raised capital from investors including BlackRock and T. Rowe Price New Horizons Fund.[13] That year the company had $900 million in sales and had become the number 1 online pet retailer.[14] By 2017, he raised $350 million and was preparing for an IPO.[15]

In April 2017, PetSmart purchased Chewy for $3.35 billion in the largest e-commerce acquisition of all time.[15] That year Fortune named Cohen one of its "40 under 40"[16] and Vox named him to its Recode 100 list.[17] Cohen remained CEO following the acquisition and operated the business largely as an independent unit of PetSmart.[14] He grew the business to 3.5 billion in revenue in 2018[15] prior to stepping down as CEO to pursue personal goals and spend time with his family.[2] In June 2019, Chewy went public at a valuation of $8.7 billion.[18]

In January 2021, Cohen joined the GameStop board along with two Chewy executives. Cohen was also appointed Chairman to lead a new committee in charge of a company-wide transformation.[19] Cohen's appointment triggered a stock rally resulting in a short squeeze. Within two weeks the stock had increased by 1,500%.[20] Since then, Cohen has been instrumental in a number of changes at GameStop,[21] including the departure of multiple executives and ten members of the board of directors,[19] and the hiring of multiple Amazon and Chewy executives in leadership positions.[22] He became Chairman following the annual shareholder meeting.[5][23]