“Luck is where opportunity meets preparation.”
Nathan “Nate” Deno is a commercial operator, board advisor, and investor who has built growth engines and transformed businesses at moments of significant opportunity and change. He has worked and advised companies across at all stages and scale from hypergrowth at Chewy, mega-cap scale at Amazon and Target, PE-backed category-leader at PetSafe Brands, and early-stage companies through his advisory and investment firm, Insurgent Growth. Over approximately 25 years, he has owned P&Ls from roughly $500 million to $8 billion. Having worked on both sides of the commercial relationship as a buyer and seller, Nate understands how strategy, customer experience, operations, technology, merchandising, marketing, and disciplined financial management must work together to create sustainable growth.
Scaling Chewy fivefold to $8 billion—and owning that P&L through a $15 billion IPO—is the defining chapter of Nate’s career. Brought in to lead merchandise operations, he took on the P&L three months later and, as Vice President of Merchandising and Private Brands, led categories representing $8 billion of Chewy’s $10 billion in revenue. He grew those businesses from $1.6 billion to $8 billion, expanded gross margin by nearly 1,100 basis points, built the merchandising organization from 40 people to more than 160, and held the P&L for Chewy for years through it’s transition to a public company.
Building new businesses from zero is the thread through every role. At Chewy, Nate founded dropship, personalization, and fresh food businesses that added $265 million in annual revenue and opened more than $15 billion of new market, and he created a retail media platform that generated nearly $50 million in two years. At Amazon, he created a textbook rental revenue-share model that grew publisher revenue 30 percent and Amazon’s operating profit 66 percent. At Target, he led the creation of Cartwheel, the mobile loyalty platform that became Target Circle and drove more than $3 billion in sales in its first three years.
Amazon is where Nate sharpened the negotiating and margin discipline he brings to every business. In Textbooks, he improved margin by 1,000 basis points and persuaded seven of the ten largest publishers to cease decades of annual cost increases. As Divisional Merchandise Manager for Shoes, he delivered double-digit sales growth and roughly 500 basis points of margin improvement in his first year, redesigned negotiation strategy across Amazon Fashion for more than $175 million in free-cash-flow improvement, and landed holdout brands NIKE and Under Armour, adding more than $300 million in first-year sales.
Reversing a multi-year decline at a PE-backed global business was his most recent assignment. As Chief Revenue Officer of PetSafe Brands, a roughly $500 million portfolio sold in more than 70 countries, Nate grew omnichannel market share by more than 200 basis points and reached hardgoods pet share leadership on Amazon and Chewy. He improved international profitability by more than 800 basis points, expanded distribution by 33 percent, doubled the Walmart business, and grew DTC revenue 2.5 times in three years—while condensing the commercial team to 85 from 105.
Capital discipline matters as much as growth, and Nate practices it as both operator and investor. At Chewy, he restructured vendor partnerships to raise vendor funding by more than 300 basis points, to over 20 percent of cost of goods, and to extend payables by six days—growth funded partly by partners rather than the balance sheet. Through Insurgent Growth, he advises and invests in early-stage consumer and technology companies, including Everyday Goods, Okava, Carbonwave, and Probability Drive; he is also an advisor to Atomic VC and a limited partner in Humble Growth. With these partners, he helps founders decide where capital earns its best return and connects them with the relationships that fund and accelerate growth.
Nate’s foundation was built at Target, where he moved from Six Sigma leadership into buying—growing the LEGO business from $180 million to $280 million in his first full year—and then into merchandise systems. He began his career at Accenture and holds a degree in Finance and Management Information Systems from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.
For a growing company, Nate offers a rare combination: the pattern recognition of someone who has run an $8 billion business, and direct experience building new ones from zero, working under a private equity sponsor, and operating as a public company. Underlying Nate’s career is philosopher Seneca’s maxim that he values: “Luck is where opportunity meets preparation.” Outside of work, he enjoys photography, woodworking, travel, and sports.
Character
Nate leads like an owner and leaves organizations stronger than he found them—quadrupling Chewy’s merchandising team, rebuilding PetSafe’s commercial team to be leaner and more effective, and investing years in mentorship, keynote speaking, and university and nonprofit boards.
Knowledge
Approximately 25 years across retail, e-commerce, consumer products, and technology, spanning merchandising, pricing, private brands, DTC, marketplaces, retail media, and analytics. Having been both buyer and seller, he knows how each side of a retail partnership makes money—and how to structure deals where both do.
Strategic
He connects customer insight to growth and strong unit economics while turning ambitious ideas into plans a team can execute. His strategy shows up in results: growth in every business, 1,100 basis points of gross margin at Chewy, 800 basis points of international profitability at PetSafe, $175 million of free cash flow at Amazon.
Communication
Nate has aligned executives, boards, PE sponsors, vendors, and large teams around a single plan. He has negotiated with sophisticated business partners like Amazon, Walmart, NIKE, LEGO, and McGraw Hill. A former keynote speaker, he makes complex strategy simple enough to act on.
