Rick Cohen

Rick Cohen
Born	25 July 1952 (Forbes)
Nationality	American
Residence	Keene, New Hampshire (Forbes)
Occupation	Businessman
Known for	C&S Wholesale Grocers; Symbotic
Children	3 (Forbes)
Education	Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (BS accounting, 1974)

American businessman; executive chairman of C&S Wholesale Grocers and chief executive of the warehouse-automation company Symbotic

Richard B. "Rick" Cohen (born 25 July 1952) is an American businessman. He is executive chairman of C&S Wholesale Grocers, the family grocery wholesaler based in Keene, New Hampshire, which Forbes describes as the largest in the United States, and chair and chief executive of the warehouse-robotics company Symbotic.^[1]^[2] Forbes says most of the family's wealth comes from Symbotic, whose biggest customer is Walmart.^[1]^[3] On 10 November 2026 the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list ranked Cohen and his family 136th in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$19.8 billion; Forbes lists the source of wealth as warehouse automation.^[1]^[4] In the annual World's Billionaires list published in 2026, Forbes had ranked Cohen and his family 97th, at US$26.3 billion.^[5] In 2024 C&S was the proposed buyer of 579 stores to be sold off in the Kroger–Albertsons merger, which a federal judge blocked in December 2024.^[6] He seldom gives interviews.^[7]^[3]

Early life and education

Cohen studied accounting at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1974.^[8]^[2] He told Wharton Magazine that he married three weeks after graduating and went to work in his family's small grocery wholesale business in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he used his computer training to automate the business early.^[8] He holds honorary doctorates from Assumption College and Keene State College.^[2]

C&S Wholesale Grocers

C&S was started by his grandfather in 1918.^[1] His grandfather, the co-founder Israel Cohen, handed over to Cohen's father, Lester, in 1955, and Rick Cohen joined in the 1970s, when the Keene-based company had sales of about US$50 million a year in New England.^[3] He became chairman, president and chief executive in 1989. He was president until March 2014 and chief executive until January 2018, and remains executive chairman.^[2] Through acquisitions he built C&S into the country's largest grocery wholesaler. In the 1990s it built one of the most advanced automated warehouses in the United States, at York, Pennsylvania.^[3] Forbes puts its annual revenue at about US$30 billion, and reports that in August 2026 C&S agreed to buy a majority stake in the grocery chain Winn-Dixie.^[1] Kroger–Albertsons divestiture. To win approval for their merger, Kroger and Albertsons agreed to sell 579 stores to C&S. The Federal Trade Commission argued that C&S was "ill-equipped" to run them. In December 2024 Judge Adrienne Nelson blocked the merger, finding that the divestiture "will significantly disadvantage C&S as a competitor".^[6]

Symbotic

In about 2005 the inventor John Lert approached Cohen about starting a warehouse-automation company for grocers. Cohen put up the money to form it in 2007. Lert sold his majority stake to Cohen in 2009 and left in 2011, when its first prototype was installed in a C&S warehouse at Newburgh, New York. Cohen renamed the company, originally CasePick Systems, Symbotic in 2012.^[3] Former employees told the Boston Globe that Cohen was closely involved in every decision; one said: "He made every decision, whether it was a $100 million decision or $100 decision." The company had three chief executives between 2011 and the end of 2017, when Cohen took the role himself.^[3] In 2021 Walmart agreed to install Symbotic systems in 25 of its regional distribution centres, and in 2022 it extended the deal to all 42. Walmart received a stake in the company, and almost 90 per cent of Symbotic's revenue in fiscal 2023 came from Walmart.^[3] Symbotic went public in 2022 through a US$5.5 billion merger with a SoftBank-sponsored special-purpose acquisition company.^[1] Cohen has chaired the board since June 2022 and has been chief executive since November 2022. He takes no salary, bonus or equity awards.^[2] In 2023 Symbotic and SoftBank set up a joint venture, GreenBox (now trading as Exol), which SoftBank owns 65 per cent and Symbotic 35 per cent. In fiscal 2025 Symbotic bought Walmart's Advanced Systems and Robotics business.^[2] Forbes reports revenue of US$2.2 billion in fiscal 2025.^[1]

Ownership

Symbotic's January 2026 proxy statement lists Richard B. Cohen as beneficial owner of 7.6 per cent of the combined voting power. Much larger blocks are held by Cohen family trusts: David Ladensohn, described as a long-time friend of Cohen, is listed with 31.6 per cent as an individual and as trustee of Cohen family trusts, and Janet L. Cohen with 27.7 per cent as trustee of other family trusts. Walmart holds 12.7 per cent of the voting power.^[2] In January 2024 the Boston Globe put the value of Cohen's 219 million shares, some held by family trusts, at US$11 billion.^[3]

Wealth

Forbes lists his family's source of wealth as warehouse automation and classes it as inherited and growing.^[1]

Wealth history

Forbes has included this entry in its annual World's Billionaires list in 4 of the editions from 2001 to 2026 checked for this profile, starting with 2023. The table gives the rank and estimated net worth in each annual list, and, where applicable, the rank and estimate in the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans.^[5]^[1]

Forbes estimates by list year
Year	World's Billionaires rank	Net worth (US$ bn)	Forbes 400 rank	Forbes 400 net worth (US$ bn)
2022	–	–	99	7.6
2023	195	9.6	41	16.2
2024	99	19.6	96	10.4
2025	199	12.0	45	22.1
2026	97	26.3	54	21.9

Philanthropy

Cohen serves on the board of the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College.^[7] No other major gifts were documented in the sources checked.

Political activity

No donations to political parties or candidates were documented in the sources checked.

International and political links

This section uses the same ten headings for every profile in this series. Only specific, sourced actions are included; company-level and foundation-level actions are labelled as such. Where nothing was found, the entry reads "No documented involvement found in sources checked."