A business executive with experience growing television audiences has been named president and CEO of Petplan and given responsibility for expanding the pet health insurance company’s customer base.
Paul Guyardo was chief commercial officer at Discovery Communications until December 2017 and before that was chief revenue and marketing officer at DirecTV. Petplan reported that Guyardo “quadrupled subscribers of Eurosport Player” while at Discovery and helped grow DirecTV subscribers from 15 million to 20 million.
Petplan, based in Philadelphia, has an estimated U.S. market share of 7 percent.
“Health insurance for pets is a big business in Europe but has yet to take off in the U.S. and Canada,” said Petplan’s chairman, Vernon W. Hill II. “Given Paul’s incredible track record, he is the perfect person to introduce Petplan to millions of pet-loving homes across North America.”
Guyardo’s previous jobs included chief marketing officer at Kmart Corp. and executive vice president of television and marketing at Home Shopping Network.