REI’s CEO on Rebuilding Growth, Reinventing Membership, and Blending AI With Human Connection | NRF 2026

Welcome back, everyone.

This is omnitalk Retail.

I'm Anne Mazinga.

And I'm Chris Walton.

And we are coming back live from NRF 2026 from the Vuzion booth.

Big thanks to Vuzion for helping us bring you all these interviews and our coverage from the show.

Next, we have for me, a returning guest.

Mary Beth and I have had the chance to connect back when you were at fedlab.

Right.

And so forth.

Those who are meeting Mary Beth for the first time.

Mary Beth Lawton is the CEO of rei.

Welcome back to Omni Talk.

Thank you.

Good to be here.

It's so great to have you.

Yeah.

So let's dig in.

So Ann mentioned, like, she's interviewed you before.

Funny.

Fun fact for those listening, too.

You and I went to business school together.

We did.

So we know each other from business school.

We're in the same class.

No, you're a year ahead of me.

Ah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, you're a year ahead of me.

Okay.

And so, yeah, tell us about your background and then also, you know, what's been your early impressions of rei?

Yeah, so I've been at REI almost a year now.

It'll be a year in February, which is hard to believe.

It's been a whirlwind of a year.

A great experience so far, and I do think it's been really drawing on my past experiences from my career and kind of all the different chapters of my career so far.

So, you know, I've spent the majority of my career at consumer brands, really, in kind of the digital innovation space, but.

But also in a lot of retailers where we're always balancing kind of growth and innovation with getting retail fundamentals in place to scale the business.

And I love both of those sides of things.

So it's been great to come to rei, where we're very much in the midst of looking to do both of those and drive a lot of growth.

We have a lot of unique assets at rei, which is one of the things that really drew me in.

In addition to the mission and the values, which are so strong, but the fact that we have 25 million members, we have amazing Greenvest employ.

If you've been in our stores, who are, you know, trusted guides.

They are, you know, amazing outdoor experts, and they really care about helping people find what they're looking for for the outdoors.

So we have a lot going for us as a brand.

A lot of work still to do, but it's a fun challenge.

And so, yeah, I'm glad to be here.

Well, let's talk a little bit about those.

Those members.

Mary Beth, tell me, you know, what is the.

What.

Who is the REI member now and what kind of experiences are they looking for?

Both, you know, online, maybe starting their.

Some of their search and discovery and then in the store, maybe with those green vests.

Yeah, totally.

So we call our target customer the Outdoor Evangelist.

And I love that name because it's obviously someone who loves the outdoors.

But then the evangelist part is they love talking about the outdoors and their love for the outdoors with others too.

So it kind of creates this sense of community naturally, which is so much of what REI is about too.

Just people, like minded people who love the outdoors, coming together to do fun things.

And so, yeah, our customer base is pretty broad.

I mean, people love all sorts of aspects of the outdoors, and they come from all different backgrounds and, you know, different frequency levels in terms of how much they're outside or not.

And we really embrace all of them.

We've always had a really core kind of outdoor, enthusiastic customer that's very committed to the, to the outdoors.

But we also have, you know, I think Covid in particular brought a lot of people into the outdoors space that just want to be part of it and know what the mental and the physical benefits of it are and just want to participate.

So we're making sure that we can really serve all of them.

Is the outdoor Adventist?

Is that something that you inherited or is that something that you've brought in since taking over?

Well, maybe a little bit of both, because the team had done some work.

I think what we've been really focused on this last year is ramping up our focus on the customer.

And I think it's always been inherent to rei.

I think we're naturally, as a co op, very member focused, very customer focused.

But what we've been trying to do this year is really make sure that the customer is at the center of everything we do and the decisions we make.

And I think a lot of companies say that.

At least a lot of companies, you know, I've been a part of or seen.

I think the difference is when you actually integrate it into the bloodstream of the organization.

And I love when we stop a meeting and are like, hey, you know, what does our customer say in this moment?

And if we're in the midst of a tough debate and we don't know how to make a decision, you know, oftentimes it cuts through that complexity and it's like, oh, it's actually pretty simple if you think about it from that lens.

So, yeah, so we're definitely continuing to ramp up our focus because I think it's super critical for the future of the co op.

Yeah.

So you just finished the Holiday season.

What were some of the key moments that stood out for you as CEO?

Yeah, well, Holiday was fun.

We had, you know, exceeded our expectations.

We have some good momentum in the business, so that was, of course, great to see.

We still have, you know, we're on a path toward getting the co op back to even more health, more profitability.

So it was a good step in that.

That journey.

But, yeah, we saw a lot of interesting things in Holiday.

I mean, one was just how much our customers really love gifting.

This year, we put a focus on gifting, and we had this kind of fun community campaign around give without guessing.

And so we integrated our green vest from the store, had them kind of give their opinions on what types of products you'd want.

And we just made it really simple to kind of shop by category.

And that led to our gifting business was up, like, 16% year over year.

And I think the consumer these days really wants to give experiences, not just stuff.

And so the more we leaned into that, I think that really paid off.

And then we also saw an interesting blend in Holiday wanting to buy, you know, newness and innovation.

And we obviously partner a lot with our vendor partners to bring that to life for our customer.

But then they also wanted a lot of kind of essential basics and gear.

So we sold a lot of socks this holiday.

We sold a lot of water bottles.

So people are definitely selling good margin in socks.

There's good margins.

Great margin in socks, actually, for sure.

Well, Mary Beth, as you're here at nrf, you're going to be speaking, but there's a lot of technology here.

As you think about 2026 and kind of the.

The things that are on your roadmap that you mentioned, what are some of those technologies?

Maybe just a couple that really stand out, that you're like, I think this is something we need to dive deeper into.

Yeah.

I mean, it's interesting.

There's been so much talk so far at nrf, I think, on technology, and it's super important to our future.

We're spending a lot of time thinking about AI.

We're thinking about, you know, where do we want to invest our tech dollars.

Yeah.

But I think what's interesting about it is that we're, you know, we're thinking a couple of steps down the road where I don't think technology is actually going to be the Differentiator in retail.

But, you know, ultimately you have to have it.

But I think everyone's going to have some of it at the end of the day.

Yeah.

And what's really going to differentiate is that human connection that's blending with the technology.

Right.

And I'm starting to hear more from others about that.

But at rei, it's like, really core to who we are, because you think about if someone comes into, you know, an REI experience and wants to shop, and AI can do it in a really fast, smart way, but, you know, AI isn't.

It doesn't have that human lived experience.

Right.

Like, AI hasn't gone camping.

It hasn't gone.

They weren't in Scion.

No.

They don't know what it's.

Yeah.

What you need for layers.

Totally.

That kind of thing.

So our green vests can bring that human element to it.

And we can, of course, equip our green vests with great technology and make sure we're leveraging it.

I mean, we'll continue to really invest in the right innovations, but we're really trying to think about that bigger blending and combination, which I think is going to be really powerful.

Right, right.

Yeah.

There's still table stakes, technology investments that have to be happening.

Right.

So for sure.

Yeah, for sure.

All right, so then let's get you out here on this.

Like, to that point.

Let's segue there.

Like, what's on the roadmap for 2026?

Like, what are you excited about?

Any key announcements you can tease for us?

We always like to get that out of people whenever we can.

Yeah, I know.

I don't know that I have anything today, but we did.

We did announce a new partnership with Intrepid Travel last week.

So it's really hot off the presses, and it's a global adventure travel company and a really exciting new member benefit that we're offering our REI members, so access to these great trips and our gear for them.

And so we're thinking a lot.

One of the things we're excited about more generally is just reinventing our membership program.

And, you know, that'll take some time, but we're thinking about how do we continue to make a membership and loyalty program that's emotionally kind of connecting to our customers, not just a transactional program.

And so we're already doing things in that zone that I'm excited about.

And then we'll continue to think about our assortment, and how do we make that really culturally relevant and exciting for our customer.

We're thinking about elevating our service and experience, especially in this digital and AI world.

So, yeah, we have a lot we're thinking about, we're excited about for rei's future.

Excellent.

Well, we are so thankful for your time, Mary Beth, of course, wishing you continued success.

Thank you in Year one beyond.

Thank you at rei.

And thank you, thank you again to all of you who've been sticking with us here.

Thanks to Vuzion for our covering all of the stories here from all the retailers at NRF 2026.

And until next time, be careful out there.