Named chief executive officer of iRobot back in May 2024, Gary Cohen has a 25 year history of leading successful turnarounds – good news for the robot vac company! Previous roles were at Qualitor Automotive, Timex, Energizer and Gillette. In this interview he talks to us about making iRobot swim, his love of tech and being a Boston boy.
I’m from a fairly blue-collar background.
One of my grandfathers was a house painter and the other was a butcher. I started working when I was in 7th or 8th grade, babysitting, and the goal was to save money. The first thing I bought was stereo equipment – I was into music, lots of Bostonbands. I had a reel-to-reel player and those speakers that are about 4ft tall in my basement. I’ve always been into trying to save money to buy stuff.
I have everything on an app at home.
I have a Vantage system for lights and sound, but I do use different apps for most devices as the makers know how to develop the best ones. Sonos, heating, garage doors, the alarm system… and all my iRobot cleaners!
I’ve worked with some fantastic brands.
I started at Gillette, working on the Right Guard brand. Later I moved to blades and razors and helped launch one of the most successful brands in the world, Mach3. Still with Gillette, I moved on to the Oral-B business and grew that brand to almost $2bn in sales. I also played a pivotal role at Energizer, Playtex and later Timex.
Since I started at iRobot we’ve been talking to consumers more – asking them what they want in a robotic vacuum.
This dialogue has led to new technologies like 3D map creation – navigating and planning the optimal route to clean each room without missing a spot. With advanced object recognition, robots know what’s ahead, avoiding objects of all sizes. Consumers don’t want to have to pick up stuff on the floor before they clean it.
If we don’t innovate, we’re going to die.
The lifeblood of consumer product companies is that you need to come up with new products and satisfy consumer needs. When I joined Oral-B I inherited an empty cupboard of ideas, and within three years we rejuvenated the business. At iRobot the cupboard wasn’t bare – we had so many great ideas – but our biggest challenge now is commercialising them.
I’ve lived near Boston for most of my life.
I’m a huge sports fan. I like the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots. Today I live in Connecticut, about 50 miles outside of Manhattan. I have the best of both worlds, living the small-town life with proximity to New York City and working in the Boston suburbs during the week.
I’m a fitness fanatic.
I have a big family who are pretty active – we all like to ski, hike and play golf. I also run and lift weights to stay fit. I’m always looking for the best earbuds to work out with when I lift weights; and much as I love my AirPods, I’m using Beats right now for running with my Apple Watch. Running is a way for me to decompress and de-stress. I just came back from Boulder, Colorado, where one of my four daughters lives – we hiked all weekend. I think we were outside enjoying the mountains for 12hrs a day.
I try to go to off-grid places.
My daughter lived in Idaho before she moved to Boulder, so that’s two places that are totally different from any north-east city I’ve been in… and the minute you get to Colorado you’re like, “Wow!” It’s a totally different world. We went to one of the National Parks a month or two ago and the minute you get above a certain altitude nobody can reach you, so the phones are off.
I like to take cooking classes when I travel.
I love travelling and we try to take a family trip every couple of years. We love going to Europe; the places we’ve visited most are London and France. We did all the museums in London last time, but when we went to France we did a cooking class: went shopping in the morning, prepared the food and then ate, with a glass of wine with each course. It’s just an amazing experience for family bonding. We’ve done the same thing in Spain and Italy.
I’m a big advocate of using AI to make us smarter and better.
At iRobot we have engineers who are using AI for faster programming and data analysis, and I am so impressed with the progress they have made in such a short time. I’ve used it personally for research, editing and business management.
Golf is becoming an obsession for me.
It wasn’t until after college that I started golf. With four daughters we’ve been a soccer family – for the last 25 years we’ve been doing soccer trips on the weekends and travelling pretty far, so I’ve only recently had time to dedicate to my golf game. I love watching it and I love playing it – it’s another great way to recharge my batteries. I actually got one of my daughters into golf: she had a concussion and couldn’t play soccer, so she joined me on the golf course and has now taken it up! Whenever she visits, we’ll go out for a quick nine and enjoy the time together.
For more info see iRobot.com
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