Fruugo, the UK’s leading global online marketplace platform, today announced the appointment of Fergal Gara as its new chief operations officer (COO). In this role, Gara will draw on his deep retail and technology experience to lead Fruugo’s business operations and drive the company’s continued growth.
Before joining Fruugo, Gara served as chief commercial officer (CCO) at CMS Distribution, a specialist distributor, where he led commercial strategy and operations across the UK, Europe and USA. Prior to CMS Distribution, he held several roles at Amazon, including director of technology and operations at Amazon Fashion, where he led internal transformation programmes, implementation of new automation and business intelligence tools and delivery of operational improvement programmes. He also served as director for IT, office products and UK pricing, leading high growth categories at a key time in Amazon’s development.
He has held roles at Sony Computer Entertainment UK, as vice president and managing director (UK & Ireland), where he led the launch of PlayStation 4 (PS4) in the region, and Asda Stores Limited (Ltd.) as trading director for Asda Direct and various other commercial roles.
“Fergal has extensive board-level experience with some of the biggest names in the retail sector,” said Dominic Allonby, executive chairman and co-founder at Fruugo. “His appointment to Fruugo’s executive team is a pivotal moment in Fruugo’s history. The company has gone from strength to strength, and with his experience gained at Amazon, Sony and Asda, we can trust him to guide us and implement Fruugo’s strategic vision for 2024 and beyond.”
Gara has deep sector knowledge and has led multiple change programmes and acquisitions across the European and USA markets. In his new role, he will bring his expertise to steer Fruugo’s sales and marketing activity, to build awareness and drive customer engagement across key regions.
“It’s a really exciting time to be joining Fruugo given its growth trajectory,” said Gara. “The leadership team is ambitious, and we already have many strategic projects underway. I look forward to helping Fruugo expand in several key markets and working closely with retailers to help them achieve their sales goals and drive cross-border trade which is vital to the wider economy.”
Gara received a bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from University College Dublin and an MBA from Cranfield School of Management.
