Ryan Cohen

Cohen was born to a Jewish family in Montreal.[5][6] He never attended college, citing his father, who ran a glassware company, as his primary inspiration in pursuing an entrepreneurial route.[7] His father died in December 2019.[6]

At the age of 15, Cohen started his first business collecting fees off referrals to various e-commerce sites. In 2011, at the age of 25, Cohen founded Chewy under its original name of MrChewy.[8] Cohen says his inspiration for picking the pet category came from his experience shopping for his poodle Tylee.[9] He cites his father Ted, who ran a glassware importing business, as a mentor.[10][11] In need of capital, Cohen says he originally approached over 100 venture capital firms and was rejected by all of them.[12][13] In 2013, Cohen secured the company's first outside investment from Volition Capital for $15 million.[14] By 2016, he had raised capital from investors including BlackRock and T. Rowe Price New Horizons Fund.[15] That year the company had $900 million in sales and had become the number 1 online pet retailer.[16] By 2017, he raised $350 million and was preparing for an IPO.[17]

In April 2017, PetSmart purchased Chewy for $3.35 billion in the largest e-commerce acquisition of all time.[17] That year Fortune named Cohen one of its "40 under 40"[18] and Vox named him to its Recode 100 list.[19] Cohen remained CEO following the acquisition and operated the business largely as an independent unit of PetSmart.[16] He grew the business to 3.5 billion in revenue in 2018[17] prior to stepping down as CEO to pursue personal goals and spend time with his family.[20] In June 2019, Chewy went public at a valuation of $8.7 billion.[21]

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.[22] Cohen's appointment triggered a stock rally; within two weeks the stock had increased by 1,500% resulting from a short squeeze.[23] Since then, Cohen has been instrumental in a number of changes at GameStop,[24] including the departure of multiple executives and ten members of the board of directors,[22] and the hiring of multiple Amazon and Chewy executives in leadership positions.[25] He became chairman following the annual shareholder meeting.[4][26]

Cohen was named in a federal lawsuit on August 24, 2022 for an alleged fraudulent scheme to artificially inflate the price of Bed Bath & Beyond's publicly traded stock in a pump and dump. The suit alleges Cohen conspired with company CFO Gustavo Arnal to release "fraudulent and misleading SEC filings". It claims damages of $1.2 billion in a class action suit.[33][34]