Gone to the dogs: Dole Foods’ Kelly joins Petco as top lawyer

From food for humans to the vast pet food market: Petco has hired Genevieve Kelly as chief legal officer; she’d previously been general counsel of Dole. Kelly replaces Alan Tse, who’d been with Petco for about two years.

Kelly brings more than 25 years of leadership experience in legal practice for multinational corporations. Before her new stint at Petco, she was general counsel at Dole Food Company, where she was promoted five times during her 14 years there. Previously, Kelly also worked as a corporate attorney for the international law firms Sidley Austin and McDermott Will & Emery, and as legal counsel for multinational corporations Occidental Petroleum Corporation and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and for the global investment bank Houlihan Lokey.

She’s got tons of academic credentials, too. Kelly is both a Fulbright and Rotary Scholar, and holds an A.B. magna cum laude from Brown University in English literature and organizational behavior and management; an M.A. magna cum laude and LL.M magna cum laude from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium in European studies and EU law; and a J.D. cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center. Since December 2016, she has also been designated a Board Leadership Fellow by the National Association of Corporate Directors.

“Genevieve is a proven leader with an impressive scope of experience as a corporate attorney,” said Petco CEO Ron Coughlin. “I’m thrilled to welcome her to Petco’s leadership team and confident her unique perspective and counsel will serve as tremendous assets for our business.”