Alan Maran Helped Take Chewy Public

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Alan Maran arrived at Chewy in 2019, before Chewy deliveries became as common to see on doorsteps as Amazon packages. Six months later, he helped the company go public, a milestone that ended with Chewy being valued in the multibillions of dollars. The chief audit executive has spent the past six years articulating and leading the internal audit strategy for the name in pet-related retail and home delivery.

Born in Brazil, the trilingual Maran has worked with Fortune 500 companies and driven results from Ernst & Young to Johnson Controls, from Denver to Miami, and for both humans and pets.

The opportunity to come to Chewy, Maran explains, was too good to pass up. Chewy was preparing for its IPO, and he wanted to be part of the process. The challenge was that the company had no formal audit function in place. The executive and his two team members worked quickly to establish internal audit and global controls from scratch. They made sure Chewy met the rigorous standards of a publicly traded company

“We had to roll up our sleeves and get to work to create all these processes and procedures,” Maran explains. “The only way to do this was to do it right. There was too much on the line and it was too important not to get it correct the first time.”

When Maran started at Chewy, the company made about $2.7 billion in annual revenue. Today, Chewy has surpassed $11 billion in revenue, and his team has grown to fifteen professionals. “That makes me proud because it means we’ve helped Chewy continue to expand,” the chief audit executive says.

Maran says establishing strong relationships with external auditors is critical for his internal teams to do their best work. “A lot of investment goes into that relationship-building,” he says.

---

Advertisement

---

The executive’s influence at Chewy extends beyond number. He has endeavored to create more opportunities for connection and advancement for Latinos at the company. Maran is the executive sponsor for Chewy’s chapter of HOLA, the employee resource group for Latino professionals. He worked collaboratively with Chew’s chief human resources officer to create the chapter because he knows how much of a difference such a group can make for morale, career development, and growth opportunities.

“I’m a Latino immigrant, and it hasn’t always been easy,” Maran explains. “I’ve gotten where I am by being bold, taking calculated risks, and always working to be a better version of myself every day.

“I had to prove myself when I came here, and there was a lot I had to adapt to and learn,” he continues. “I’d never played baseball, for example. That may sound silly, but it’s such a significant part of the US experience. So many of us get here and spend a lot of time acclimating ourselves to our new home. It can be challenging, and I hope groups like HOLA at Chewy help us create a sense of community, regardless of where we come from.”

Maran is currently focused on moves that will continue to allow Chewy to be the main player in its space. New efficiencies and AI-driven audit technology are offering chances to optimize and evolve the audit function.

“Partnering with EXL has been a game changer for Chewy’s digital transformation journey, especially in the audit and assurance space. While businesses often struggle to navigate the complexities of going digital—lacking the strategy, skills, and vision—EXL helped us overcome these challenges by automating lower-risk, high-volume tasks,” says Rohit Gupta, vice president and client partner at EXL. “This enabled our team to focus on more complex, high-risk areas, significantly boosting efficiency. Through the creation of a unified data lake and the integration of a Domain-Specific Audit LLM, EXL streamlined audit data automation, enhancing both the speed and accuracy of Chewy’s processes. By leveraging AI-powered agents for tasks like planning, risk identification, external data validation, and report generation, we’ve reduced manual effort and improved decision-making.”

 Maran has cultivated a reputation as a leader in the space, appearing on The Audit Podcast and Auditboard and writing his own blog, Internal Audit Future, on the subject.

The executive does significant advisory work at Chewy, working closely with management on implementing and developing system changes and new controls. He also reports directly to the audit committee and says he is proud of the trust he has built with the group.

“It’s my job to paint a picture for them,” Maran explains. “My points are clear in terms of strategy and what I am thinking, but I also want them to challenge me. I walk through my process and ideas step-by-step with transparency, honesty, and frequent communication. When you’re presenting, you need to be receptive to feedback. People can tell if you aren’t, and it can create friction.”

Maran came to Chewy at one of its pivotal moments as a business, and he helped the company knock the ball out of the park. That’s a baseball idiom that might seem natural for a US citizen, but it’s one Maran had to adapt to. And he did, lifting up dozens of Latinos along the way.

---