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Petco Animal Supplies Inc., the San Diego-based retail store for pet products, on Monday announced the hiring of the former general counsel of Dole Food Company as its new chief legal officer and corporate secretary.

Genevieve Kelly will serve as the company's chief legal officer and corporate secretary. She will oversee all of the company's legal, corporate governance and regulatory affairs, according to a company news release.

Petco's last top lawyer was Alan Tse, who held the role of vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. Tse left Petco in June to start his new role as the global general counsel of Jones Lang LaSalle, IP Inc., a Chicago-based professional services, investment and real-estate management company.

In the news release, Kelly said she is excited to join Petco.

“It's an honor to join a company with such a strong corporate reputation and the opportunity to make a tremendous impact in the lives of pets and pet parents every day,” Kelly said. “I'm excited to continue strengthening and protecting Petco's brand, and to be part of the company's ongoing growth and evolution.”

Petco CEO Ron Coughlin, who joined the company in June, said in the release that Kelly has a wealth of experience to help lead the company's legal department.

“Genevieve is a proven leader with an impressive scope of experience as a corporate attorney,” Coughlin said. “I'm thrilled to welcome her to Petco's leadership team and confident her unique perspective and counsel will serve as tremendous assets for our business as we continue transforming the company for both pet parents and our own Petco partners.”

Before joining Petco, she was an outside general counsel and independent legal consultant for different companies and before that worked in-house at Dole Food, where she held several titles and eventually became the company's VP, general counsel and corporate secretary. Earlier in her career she was an associate in corporate law at McDermott Will & Emery and Sidley Austin.

She has also been in-house counsel for Oxy, an oil company based in Los Angeles, and assistant general counsel of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. She graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1993.

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