Gregg Kaplan is an American business executive. He is the founder and former Chief Executive Officer of

Redbox Redbox Automated Retail, LLC was an American video rental and streaming media company, based in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois west of Chicago. Redbox specialized in automated DVD rental kiosks, and operated transactional and ad-supported streamin ...

, the founder of Modjule LLC, and the former President and COO of

Coinstar Coinstar, LLC (formerly Outerwall, Inc.) is an American company operating coin-cashing machines. Coinstar's focus is the conversion of loose change into paper currency, donations, and gift cards via coin counter kiosks which deduct a fee for c ...

. He has also worked for

McDonald's Corporation McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

, Streamline.com, and is now an Operating Partner with

Pritzker Group The Pritzker family is an American family engaged in various business enterprises and philanthropy, and one of the wealthiest families in the United States (staying in the top 10 of ''Forbes'' magazine's "America's Richest Families" list since th ...

Private Capital.

Early life

Kaplan graduated from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

with a BA in Philosophy, and is also an alumnus of

Pi Kappa Phi Pi Kappa Phi (), commonly known as Pi Kapp(s), is an American Greek Letter secret and social Fraternities and sororities in North America, fraternity. It was founded by Andrew Alexander Kroeg Jr., Lawrence Harry Mixson, and Simon Fogarty Jr. on De ...

fraternity. He later earned an MBA from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

Business career

Kaplan began his career as an investment banker in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

after his graduation from the University of Michigan, and worked in the industry for three years at Furman Selz. After his MBA, he worked for Streamline.com as Director of Interactive Marketing between 1996 and 1999. From 1999 to 2001, he was then a partner at Divine interVentures. Kaplan then joined McDonald's as a strategy and development executive, and it is while he was at McDonald's that Kaplan founded Redbox. In 2002, Kaplan started Redbox, testing a variety of different product kiosks, including DVD rental, in a handful of McDonald's restaurants and other miscellaneous locations in Washington DC. In 2003 he shut down all the other kiosk tests and focused redbox exclusively on DVD rentals. Kaplan ran the company from its infancy as an incubated enterprise at McDonald's, and served as the company's CEO beginning in 2005 when it became a separate entity after Coinstar invested $32 million to own 47% of the enterprise. He held the CEO position until 2009, when Coinstar acquired the remaining equity in Redbox from McDonald's and from the Redbox employees.http://www.vendingtimes.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=EB79A487112B48A296B38C81345C8C7F&nm=Article+Archives&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=F4EDEE9A648B4F849F4AC0AA06C00A44 In this time the company grew from a small number of kiosks to 14,000. Kaplan then served as the president and COO of Coinstar, the parent company of Redbox, after the acquisition of Redbox He served in this position until 2013, over which time the Coinstar and Redbox businesses increased from $1 billion to $2.2 billion in revenue. During that time, Redbox grew to 42,000 kiosk locations. Following his time at Coinstar, he co-founded Modjule LLC, a private investment firm focused on kiosks and small footprint retail. He also sat on the boards of Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, Enova, In Context Solutions, and Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship. In 2015 Kaplan became a partner with Pritzker Group Private Capital, serving as Operating Partner of the firm's Services team. He took over as CEO of Dentologie in June 2022.

Personal life

In 2009 Kaplan was named one of Crain's Chicago Business's "40 under 40”. He lost his first wife, Felicia Kaplan, to breast cancer in 2012, and remarried in 2015 to Lindsay Avner, founder and CEO of Bright Pink, a breast and ovarian cancer non-profit In 2016, Kaplan and Avner launched the website ExploreYourGenetics.org, to help educate women about the use of

genetic testing Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...

to prevent breast and ovarian cancer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaplan, Gregg Living people Harvard Business School alumni University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni American company founders American chief operating officers American chief executives Year of birth missing (living people)