Antoni Porowski

Antoni Porowski joined the Petco Love Board in 2023. Antoni is a New York Times Bestselling author, host and executive producer of Netflix’s Easy-Bake Battle culinary competition series, and star of Netflix’s award-winning hit Queer Eye. A self-taught cook, Antoni is a four-time Emmy nominee for his role as Queer Eye’s resident food & wine expert. Antoni brings his lifelong passion for food to Yummers, his pet food brand cofounded alongside Queer Eye costar Jonathan Van Ness and pet industry veteran Rebecca Frechette Rudisch. In addition to Petco Love, Antoni serves on the board of the Equaversity Foundation which was established to organize international fundraising to support the LGBTQ+ community in his family's Poland and is also a member of City Harvest's Food Council, a group of top chefs and culinary experts dedicated to spreading awareness and raising funds to end hunger in communities throughout New York City.

Damien Harmon

Audit Committee

 Damien joined Petco Love Board in October 2020. Currently as Senior Executive Vice President of Customer, Channel Experiences & Enterprise Services at Best Buy, Damien is responsible for the end-to-end customer experience and the work that enhances every interaction with our customers and employees.  It is in these transformative spaces that Damien thrives, pushing the business and his teams to take decisive actions that impact the most critical company and employee needs of the day, while keeping an eye on long-term goals. Prior to his current role, Damien served as Executive Vice President of Omnichannel where he established a dedicated operations plan to enhance the company’s ability to create seamless experiences for BBY’s customers, and he oversaw the real estate portfolio, stores, operations business, services and experiences that span from stores, to virtual to in customers’ homes.  Damien first joined Best Buy as a general manager in 2005 and held various leadership positions in store operations, international operations, and store leadership, including vice president of retail operations and services. Before rejoining Best Buy in 2019, Damien spent four years at Bridgestone Americas Inc., where he served as president of GCR Tires and chief operating officer at Bridgestone Tires. Damien earned his bachelor’s degree in management from the University of Phoenix.

Tariq Hassan

As Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer, Tariq Hassan leads all marketing efforts -- including digital, media, CRM, brand content and engagement, consumer insights, and menu strategy -- to create holistic, compelling brand experiences for customers of the 14,000-plus McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. His team leverages iconic brand and digital capabilities to ensure McDonald’s continues to deliver powerful experiences that create authentic connections with customers. Prior to joining McDonald’s, Tariq spent more than 20 years in global marketing, communications, innovation and insights with premier brands. He began his career in advertising and was a founding partner of the largest ad agency startup in U.S. history. He then held marketing and brand leadership roles with HP, Omnicom Group, and Bank of America before joining Petco as Chief Marketing Officer. There, he was recognized with the Adweek Brand Genius Award, the marketing and branding world’s consummate honor, for his bold thinking and imaginative approach. His leadership in repositioning the company from a pet supply store to a category-defining lifestyle pet brand was instrumental in Petco’s successful IPO in 2021. A values-driven leader who is passionate about creating diverse and inclusive teams, Tariq was named an Adweek DEI Champion. He served as the executive sponsor for Petco’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEI&B) advisory council and LGBTQ employee resource group, and he was a board member of the Adweek DE&I and ANA CMO Growth councils. Since 2014, he has sat on the global board of Education for Employment, a non-governmental organization that empowers marginalized youth across the Middle East and North Africa. Additionally, he worked with the Obama administration on efforts to counter-message young Americans at risk to religious extremism and systemic discrimination. Tariq earned an honors bachelor’s degree from Western University in Ontario and a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from Northwestern University where he sits on the Medill School Board of Advisers.

Ame Van Iden

Board Secretary

Ame Van Iden joined the Petco Love Board in 2022. She's a strategic communications expert with more than 25 years of experience in high-level entertainment, media relations, brand and cause related campaigns, and VIP/talent relations. As a results-driven publicist, she’s created awareness for client and philanthropic endeavors. She worked alongside Christina Applegate to help launch Right Action for Women, a nonprofit that helped women with breast cancer testing, and served on its board for nearly 20 years. In 2016, Ame founded VanIden Public Relations & Consulting. Prior to that she served as the senior vice president of talent at PMK*BNC for 10 years, and as vice president at Wolf-Kasteler Public Relations for 16 years.

Daymond John

Vice Chair

An entrepreneur in every sense of the word, Daymond John has come a long way from taking out a $100,000 mortgage on his mother’s house and moving his operation into the basement. John is CEO and Founder of FUBU, a much-celebrated global lifestyle brand, and a pioneer in the fashion industry with over $6 billion in product sales. He is an award-winning entrepreneur, and he has received over 35 awards including the Brandweek Marketer of the Year, Advertising Age Marketing 1,000 Award for Outstanding Ad Campaign, and Ernst & Young’s New York Entrepreneur of the Year Award. His marketing strategies and ability to build successful brands has made him a highly influential consultant and motivational speaker today. You may know him as one of the Sharks on the 4-time Emmy Award winning TV show Shark Tank. He is going into his 15^th season of the show by acclaimed producer Mark Burnett. It reaches millions of weekly viewers who tune in to the show every Friday night as John demonstrates his marketing prowess and entrepreneurial insights. John’s marketing strategies and ability to build successful brands have made him a highly influential consultant and motivational speaker today. His marketing firm The Shark Group offers expertise in marketing strategy and connects brands with the world’s top celebrities for everything from endorsements to product extensions. In 2023, John authored the best-selling children’s picture book of the year, Little Daymond Learns to Earn. Instantly becoming a New York Times best-seller and ranking #1 on Amazon’s Top 100 Books, Little Daymond Learns to Earn teaches children the fundamentals of financial literacy and money management with a fun and engaging storyline. John is also the author of five best-selling books including his New York Times best-selling books, The Power of Broke (2016) and Rise and Grind (2018). Daymond has always loved animals and from an early age learned about nurturing them because his step father ran and continues to run a no kill shelter in New York. On his property in upstate New York he raises guinea hens, donkeys, and shelters over 1,000,000 bees.

Susanne Kogut

President

Susanne Kogut joined Petco Love as Executive Director in June 2013. In addition to now serving as the President of Petco Love, Susanne is the Vice Chair of HABRI's Board of Trustees (Human Animal Bond Research Institute). Before joining Petco Love, she served as the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA Executive Director, where she transformed the open-admission SPCA into an award-winning, nationally recognized lifesaving model. Prior to that, Susanne held several positions at Capital One Financial Corporation and was an attorney with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Brown & Wood. Susanne shares her home with her pack of dogs and a variety of foster pets.

Kevin Manion

Audit Committee Chair

Kevin Manion joined Petco Love Board in July 2019. He has been the Chief Financial Officer for several consumer products, financial services and healthcare companies, both public and privately held. He was the Chief Financial Officer for Nestle’s Pet food group earlier in his career which accelerated his love of animals and animal health. He and his wife are proud parents of two daughters and abundantly love their rescue dog, Bob.

Dr. Ted Mashima

Dr. Ted Mashima is the chief strategy officer at the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges. Board-certified in both zoological and veterinary preventative medicine, his distinguished achievements include being president and executive director of the Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund, as well as serving as the associate director for the Center for Public and Corporate Veterinary Medicine (Virginia Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine), director of development for the Barker Adoption Foundation and as a consultant to the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. He was also the former VP and secretary at the American College of Zoological Medicine, and projects director for the National Association of Physicians for the Environment.

James Sloan

Board Treasurer and Finance Committee Chair

James Sloan joined Petco Love’s Board of Directors in 2022. James brings over 15 years of private equity and corporate finance experience to further the mission of Petco Love. He is Head of Business Services, Direct Investments at GIC in New York, a global institutional investor. In this role, James focuses on sourcing and executing private equity investments and supporting and creating value for GIC’s portfolio companies. Prior to GIC, James evaluated and executed private equity investments at CVC Capital Partners and Court Square Capital Partners in New York. He began his career in the M&A Group of Credit Suisse in New York and London. He currently serves on the boards of Veritext Legal Solutions and Lytx, Inc. He previously served on the boards of Worldwide Express and Teneo and was a board observer of Petco Health & Wellness Company, Inc. James graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Justin Tichy

Chair

As Chief Pet Care Center Officer and Chief Operating Officer, Justin is responsible for overseeing all operations and execution for Petco's more than 1,500 retail locations across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Additionally, he is responsible for company-wide logistics, including oversight of our distribution centers. A sales and retail veteran, Justin brings to Petco an impressive history of accelerating business growth through operational excellence that delivers outstanding customer experiences. With more than 30 years of experience leading high-energy, results-oriented teams, his expertise lies in driving transformative growth at large, industry-leading retail organizations. Prior to joining Petco, Justin served as President of Sales at Confie, one of the largest privately held insurance brokers in the nation. Previously, he held leadership positions at Best Buy, Target and Walmart. Justin holds a bachelor's degree in business management from Pennsylvania State University and a master's degree in organizational management from the University of Phoenix. He is based at Petco's National Support Center in San Diego.