Richard B. Cohen
Chairman of the Board & Chief Executive OfficerRick 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
Chief Strategy OfficerBill 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.
Tom Ernst
Chief Financial OfficerTom Ernst has served as Chief Financial Officer of Symbotic since September 2020. He has 30 years of finance and technology leadership experience. Prior to joining Symbotic, Tom served as Chief Financial Officer of RealPage, a software company, from January 2019 to August 2020, where he led all finance, legal, mergers and acquisitions and strategy project management operations. From July 2015 to January 2019, Tom led his own strategy consulting firm, Tom Ernst Advisory, to leverage over twenty years of experience in investment banking and strategy consulting focused on the software industry. Prior to that, Tom served as a managing director at Goldman Sachs and senior equity research analyst at Deutsche Bank and Thomas Weisel Partners. Tom served as a Nuclear Engineer and Submarine Warfare Officer for five years on a fast attack submarine and served two years as the Military Training Department Head for the U.S. Navy boot camp. Tom holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and earned a B.S in mathematics from the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering.
George Dramalis
Chief Technology OfficerGeorge 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
Chief Human Resources OfficerMiriam 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
Senior Vice President, Sales, Marketing & Product StrategyMichael 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.
Corey Dufresne
Senior Vice President & General CounselAs 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
Senior Vice President, Deployment, Implementation and OperationsRob Krattiger is the Senior Vice President, Deployment, Implementation and Operations. His teams are building our scaling infrastructure and oversee end-to-end project execution from concept through start-up including pre-construction, construction, testing, operations integration, maintenance, and product technical support. 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.
William Mines
Senior Vice President, Supply ChainBill Mines is Senior Vice President, Supply Chain Optimization, responsible for the commercial aspects of all strategic vendor partnerships. Bill came to Symbotic from Walmart in 2022, where he was Senior Vice President of Finance & Strategy, Supply Chain. At Walmart, he was responsible for Finance and, Data and Analytics, for a network of more than 150 distribution centers, plus transportation, including the private fleet and third-party carriers. Previously, Bill had an extensive career with Diageo, where he served in various senior executive roles in both Finance and Supply Chain, in both North America and Asia. He also held senior leadership roles with PepsiCo, Cargill and Deloitte. Bill holds an M.S and B.S. from Magdalene College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.
Pete Opalcz
Senior Vice President, Customer OperationsPete 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
Senior Vice President, ManufacturingWalt Odisho is Senior Vice President, Manufacturing at Symbotic, leading all manufacturing operations and responsible for their operational efficiency. 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.
Cristian Mori
Senior Vice President, Hardware EngineeringAs Senior Vice President, Hardware Engineering, Cristian Mori is responsible for managing all aspects related to Hardware Engineering and Industrial Controls. Cristian is an experienced engineering and technology leader with a proven record in delivering innovative solutions and optimizing and scaling systems and processes. He will leverage this expertise to help Symbotic align with and achieve strategic product roadmap goals while providing leadership for the company’s engineering teams in Montreal, Canada. 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).
