Leadership

Rick Cohen is Chairman of Symbotic’s Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Symbotic. He is also the Executive Chairman of both C&S Holdings and C&S Wholesale Grocers, Inc., where he is the third generation of the Cohen family to lead that company. Rick grew up in the C&S Wholesale Grocers business, working for his father during the summers until his graduation from college in 1974, when he went to work full-time at C&S Wholesale Grocers. Rick became Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of C&S Wholesale Grocers in 1989 and served as President until March 2014 and as Chief Executive Officer until January 2018, during which time he led the growth and expansion of C&S Wholesale Grocers into an industry leader in supply chain solutions and wholesale grocery supply. Rick holds a B.S. in accounting from the Wharton School of Business. He has also been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from Assumption College and Keene State College. Rick was selected to serve on the board of directors due to his extensive experience in the wholesale distribution business, his vision and experience in automation and his experience and track record in entrepreneurship, investment and business development and deep relationships in various industries.

Bill Boyd has served as Chief Strategy Officer of Symbotic since February 2020. In that role, Boyd is responsible for planning and directing various operational, financial, administrative and strategic activities for Symbotic. He has more than 12 years of extensive distribution and logistics industry experience. Since February 2020, Bill has also served as the Chief Legal Officer of C&S Wholesale Grocers. Prior to joining Symbotic, Bill served from April 2019 to February 2020 as the chief legal officer at Imperial Dade, a high-growth foodservice packaging and supplies distribution company. Bill also held the roles of general counsel and chief legal officer at C&S Wholesale Grocers from March 2009 to February 2018 and February 2018 to April 2019, respectively, and in those roles, Bill was involved in the initial investment by Rick Cohen in CasePick Systems, which later became Warehouse Technologies.

Bill has a diverse educational background, with a J.D. from Duke University, M.B.A. from Babson College and a B.A. in history and psychology from Williams College.

Carol Hibbard has been named Chief Financial Officer at Symbotic. Carol brings nearly 30 years of financial, operational and business experience and a passion for technological transformation. She joins Symbotic from The Boeing Company, where she served as Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller, responsible for all financial reporting and regulatory compliance functions. She also held several leadership roles at Boeing, including Vice President and CFO for Boeing Defense, Space and Security and Vice President and CFO for their Engineering, Operations and Technology organization. Before Boeing, Carol was an Operations Research Analyst with the Department of Defense in Washington, DC, supporting the United States Navy, United States Air Force and National Reconnaissance Organization. 

Carol received an M.B.A. from Virginia Polytechnic University and a B.S. in statistics from the University of Pittsburgh.

George Dramalis is the Chief Technology Officer at Symbotic. In that role, George is responsible for building and advancing all Symbotic’s technologies and solutions. George served as Symbotic's Chief Information Officer since June 2020 and brings more than 20 years of experience in information services management. Prior to joining Symbotic, he was Chief Information Officer at C&S Wholesale Grocers from January 2011 to June 2020. Before that, he was Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Sharp Electronics Corporation. Prior to Sharp, George worked for KPMG Consulting as a manager of systems implementation, supporting clients such as Compaq, Deutsche Bank, Kodak, Tyson Foods and US Cellular. 

George has a M.A. in economics and a M.A. in finance from Webster University Geneva, Switzerland.

Miriam Ort is Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at Symbotic. In this role she is responsible for leading the human resources and communications organizations. Miriam brings more than 20 years of experience driving transformational change in global organizations. Since December 2019, Miriam has also served as EVP & CHRO of C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc. Prior to C&S, Miriam was the senior vice president, human resources at Avis Budget Group. Miriam previously spent nearly a decade in executive HR roles at PepsiCo, before which she was head of talent management for Avon Products, North America. An accomplished author and speaker, Miriam coauthored the bestselling book One Page Talent Management: Eliminating Complexity, Adding Value from Harvard Business Press. Miriam holds a Masters in HR Management from Rutgers University and a B.A. in English from Thomas Edison State College.

Michael Dunn has served as Senior Vice President, Sales, Marketing & Product Strategy at Symbotic since May 2017. His team leads Symbotic’s customer relationships, helps define the direction of the Symbotic System to ensure it remains a world-class, market-leading solution and assists in identifying key partners to enable the organization and technology to scale alongside customer growth. Prior to joining Symbotic, Michael held the role of Group Vice President Sales & Marketing at Fortna from December 2008 to May 2017, where he and his team helped some of the world’s biggest brands transform their distribution operations into a competitive advantage. Before that, Michael was an early employee at Manhattan Associates, a global supply chain solutions provider, for 12 years. As Vice President of Sales at Manhattan Associates, he played an integral role in helping the company grow from a $5 million startup to a $300 million public company. Michael is a Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) member and graduate of Purdue University with B.S. in mechanical engineering.

As Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Corey Dufresne heads Symbotic’s legal group with more than 20 years of experience in business and securities law, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital and corporate finance. Corey is responsible for leading Symbotic’s approach to technology licensing, regulatory compliance, intellectual property rights and all negotiations and business agreements. Corey joined Symbotic in 2011 after serving as Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Netezza Corporation, where he facilitated its acquisition by IBM. Prior to his role at Netezza, he spent nine years at Wilmer Hale in Boston in the Corporate Law section and two years as an associate at Jones Walker in New Orleans. Corey graduated from Tulane Law School in New Orleans.

Rob Krattiger is the Senior Vice President, Customer Experience and System Performance. His teams facilitate cross-functional collaboration with customers to support key initiatives and identify creative solutions to deploy the best products and resources to meet our customers’ needs. Rob joined C&S Wholesale Grocers in 2011, where he supported the early prototype Symbotic system in Newburgh, NY. Rob has held several roles of increasing leadership since joining Symbotic formally in 2014 including solutions engineering, deployment engineering, product management, systems engineering, and customer operations. Rob graduated from Dartmouth College with a B.A.

Pete Opalacz is Senior Vice President of Customer Operations at Symbotic, overseeing customer warehouse operations and responsible for leading our operations teams and implementing best-in-class processes, procedures, and technologies to benefit our customers and achieve operational excellence across our sites.

Pete has more than 15 years of extensive leadership, supply chain, and distribution management experience. Prior to joining Symbotic, Pete held several senior leadership roles at Martin Brower, managing multiple divisions across nationwide locations, leading large scale teams, and executing global operational initiatives. Prior to Martin Brower, Pete served was an officer in the United States Marine Corps where he served in numerous leadership positions and deployments to Afghanistan.

Pete holds an M.B.A. from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management and B.B.A in Business Administration and Management from University of Iowa.

Walt Odisho is Chief Manufacturing & Supply Chain Officer at Symbotic, leading teams responsible for strategic sourcing, supply chain, manufacturing & quality, project execution & implementation, commissioning, and customer site safety. Walt has over 30 years of experience in operations, engineering and manufacturing, with a proven history of implementing strategies that facilitate growth in quality, safety and productivity. Prior to joining Symbotic, Walt served as VP of Operations Fulfillment at Amazon.com, Inc. Prior to that, he was VP of Manufacturing, Safety & Quality for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, where he led a global production system. Prior to Boeing, Walt was Vice President/General Manager, Manufacturing and Operations at Toyota, where he spent over 24 years in senior manufacturing roles and led the company’s largest manufacturing facility across the globe. Walt graduated from The Wharton School’s Toyota Executive Development, Business Administration and Management program and holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from California State University, Fresno. He has served as an executive board member for the Kentucky Association of Manufacturers since 2010.

As Senior Vice President, Hardware Research & Development, Cristian Mori is responsible for developing cutting-edge technologies and innovative new products to provide breakthrough solutions for Symbotic's customers. Cristian is an experienced engineering and technology leader with a proven record in delivering innovative solutions and optimizing and scaling systems and processes. Prior to joining Symbotic Cristian led deployment and systems standardization at Rivian as Director of Industrial Automation and Control, Advanced Development. Previously, he led pivotal engineering and robotic & vision systems teams at Symbotic, iRobot, and Tenova Core. He received two prior patents for his work. Cristian graduated from the University of Illinois with an M.S. in Computer Science & Data Science and holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Genoa (Italy).

Brendan Blennerhassett is the Senior Vice President, European Region, responsible for developing and delivering Symbotic’s global expansion plans in Europe. Brendan has more than 30 years’ experience and a proven track record of identifying and developing effective ways to optimize and grow large organizations, most recently as CEO of Expert Technologies Group. Previously, Brendan held a number of executive leadership roles at Comau, including the CEO positions of the North America and United Kingdom business units, where he delivered transformational results, optimized growth opportunities for the business and was responsible for driving exceptional customer service and operational excellence.

Brendan graduated from the Institute of Directors in London, England as a Certified Company Director.