Ron Coughlin

Ron Coughlin is a Senior Operating Executive with more than 30 years of experience growing iconic brands across Consumer Products, Technology and Retail. His expertise lies in transforming businesses by honing strategy, propelling innovation, upgrading talent, re-engineering cost structures and igniting global sales and marketing.

Ron served as Chief Executive Officer for Petco, leading a turnaround of the declining revenue company as CEO, starting in June 2018. Ron repositioned Petco into a Health and Wellness provider of premium products and services. He upgraded the leadership team, enhanced operational rigor and drove analytics capabilities. During his tenure, the company added roughly 7 million customers, expanded revenues by over 40%, with digital and services revenues more than doubling.  Additionally, the company’s Veterinary hospital footprint increased from single-digits to over 280. Petco successfully IPO’d in 2021, reducing the company’s debt by over $1.5B in the process. During his tenure, the company helped save over 3 million pet lives and was ranked as one of America’s most responsible companies. 

Prior to Petco, Ron was with HP for 11 years, serving for 4 years as President of HP's Personal Computing segment, a $33 billion global business offering consumer and commercial products and services. During Ron’s tenure, the business went from declining revenues, share and margins to delivering double-digit revenue and profit growth enabling the company to eclipse Lenovo as the #1 World-wide PC maker.  Previously, he led a turnaround of the LaserJet Hardware and Commercial Document Solutions Business as SVP/GM. Prior to that, he was SVP of Sales and Marketing for the printing division. 

Prior to joining HP, Ron spent 13 years at PepsiCo in a range of senior roles, including Chief Marketing Officer of PepsiCo International Beverages. In that capacity, he was responsible for all marketing activities across Pepsi, 7 Up, Gatorade, Tropicana, Starbucks and Aquafina in all markets outside of the US. During his tenure, Pepsi consistently gained share vs Coca-Cola and the company’s non-carbonated portfolio expanded across the globe. He was also Chief Marketing Officer of Tropicana U.S. and began his Pepsi career as one of the architects of the successful Mountain Dew youth-oriented positioning that continues today.

Ron earned his bachelor’s degree in international marketing from Lehigh University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.  He loves skiing with his daughter, throwing batting practice to his college baseball playing son, surfing, working out and taking their Lab Yogi to dog beach in Del Mar.