Thrive Market CFO Adds COO Duties

Karen Cate has taken on the role of COO of Los Angeles-based e-grocer Thrive Market, effective immediately, in addition to her duties as CFO.

Throughout her career, Cate has guided financial strategy for companies with unique retail concepts and customer-first philosophies. Her broad range of experience includes work at large publicly held companies as well as numerous startups in various stages of growth. Before joining Thrive Market, she was SVP, CFO and COO of San Francisco-based Kendo Brands, a division of LVMH and a beauty incubator that creates original founder-led beauty brands, where she led the company through a significant growth stage with the launch of Fenty Beauty by Rihanna.

Before that, she was responsible for the financial structure and financial organization of several well-known companies, including Toms Shoes, Trader Joe’s, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Nestlé, Sun Microsystems and Avery Dennison. Early in her career, while at the Walt Disney Co., she was part of the small team that launched the first Disney Stores. She earned her MBA from Claremont Graduate University – Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management. 

Cate lives in Southern California with her husband and three daughters. 

Founded in 2014, membership-based Thrive Market carries a curated assortment of organic and non-GMO products, and offers 90-plus filters, allowing members to shop by diet and lifestyle. Over the past five years, its Thrive Gives initiative has raised more than $4.5 million to fund food access and environmental sustainability causes. The company is also the largest grocer to ever receive B Corp certification.