Since joining REI as chief merchandising officer in March 2025, around the same time CEO Mary Beth Laughton took the helm, Kristin Shane has been tasked with helping turn around a co-op that rode the COVID outdoor boom before running into the same market contraction that has squeezed specialty retailers across the board.
In an interview last week with Omni Talk Retail at Etail, a retail conference in Palm Springs, Shane shared details about:
- how REI’s Peak 28 strategy, which was unveiled in September 2025, is taking shape across merchandising.
- why REI’s AI rollout puts the chief people officer, along with the chief technology officer, at the center of the conversation.
- how the co-op navigates competing with its own vendors.
What Peak 28 Means for Merchandising at REI
Peak 28 is organized around three pillars: service, assortment, and retail fundamentals.
On the service side, Shane described what she’s looking for when she visits stores, which she does incognito. Recently, while in Flagstaff for her son’s hockey tournament, she stopped into the local REI to ask about trail running routes. The green vest (customer service rep) she spoke to pulled out a map, ran through trails and terrain, asked about her gear and checked whether she had the right hydration for the dry conditions.
“This idea that our green vests delivered this service experience to customers that they can’t get any place else — because they’ve lived it, and they’re so passionate about it,” Shane said. “We’re thinking about how we curate that service model, both in store and online, to make sure that it’s a unique proposition for REI.”
The assortment pillar goes beyond outfitting customers for what they already do. Shane wants merchants to push customers toward their next activity — not just sell a trail runner their shoes but inspire them to consider something like their first backpacking trip.
The third pillar, retail fundamentals, includes reinvesting in the tech stack for inventory allocation. That work started in 2023, before AI dominated the conversation.
“The name of the game now in retail is agility,” Shane said. “We’re talking with our partner to say we still think this is the right solution, but how are we integrating AI in a way that helps our teams be really successful and move with speed?”
AI, Microsoft and Putting the Tools in Employee Hands at REI
REI’s approach to AI is unusual in one specific way: the chief people officer is shepherding the rollout alongside the chief technology officer.
“The reason we’re doing that is because we believe AI is going to power our workforce, not necessarily be a solution for something else,” Shane said. “Having the chief people officer at the table to really help us think about how AI helps people, I think, is critically important.”
The executive team spent a day at Microsoft’s Seattle headquarters to understand how to create the conditions for experimentation. Since then, the entire workforce has been using Microsoft Copilot, and at the time of the interview, company-wide training on building AI agents was underway.
The goal is to avoid top-down mandates.
“Instead of telling the teams as a leader perspective — here is the solution — we’re trying to put the tool in the hands of the teams and have the teams tell us where they’re finding efficiencies and what works for them,” Shane said. “We’re at the beginning of this journey, and I think having a team feeling like they’re bought in, and they understand it, and they’re part of the solution, is really important.”
The Vendor Competition Problem
One challenge Shane didn’t face in her previous roles at retailers such as Guitar Center or PetSmart is now central to her role at REI: the co-op’s biggest vendors are also its most direct competitors.
Patagonia and The North Face both deploy direct-to-consumer strategies including operating their own stores. Both are also among REI’s largest vendor partners.
“The trick is, how do we create a unique proposition for the customer to come to REI — that is important for us, but where our vendor can also see, oh, that’s an incremental customer for us,” Shane said. “REI, we want to invest with you to do that. So it just means that we have to have different conversations with our vendors to make sure we service the customer.”
It’s a dynamic that has become increasingly common across retail. JD Sports faces a version of it with Nike, for instance, but it requires a particular kind of vendor conversation: one that frames REI not as a competing channel, but as a source of net-new customers.
The REI Culture Behind the Strategy
Running through all of it is a cultural framework Shane described as “connected, focused, and trailblazing.” Connected, she said, comes first for a reason: retail is a team sport, and silos kill speed. Two weeks before the interview, REI brought directors and above to company headquarters for what it called “campfire circles”: candid conversations about where the organization is struggling and how to solve problems together.
Focus is about discipline, deciding what not to pursue when the macro environment keeps throwing new variables. And trailblazing is the organization’s term for being willing to experiment and fail with new initiatives such as AI.
“Nothing has moved as fast as AI, and nobody has figured it out,” Shane said. “Let’s be clear. We’re all investing. We’re all trying to figure it out. None of us know what the answer is. And so we have to be okay with failure.”
A Career Built Across Very Different Retail Floors
Before joining REI, Shane spent 11 years at Target, then left to run an entrepreneurial venture in the Twin Cities, followed by chief merchandising officer roles at PetSmart and Guitar Center.
Each stop taught her something different, she said. At Target, it was operational rigor. At her own business, it was customer empathy or being “nose to nose” with the people she was trying to serve. At PetSmart and Guitar Center, those two threads came together in specialty retail.
“When you’re at Target, you sort of learn this operational best method of excellence for how you go to market,” Shane said. “It’s sort of like ingrained in you. And then I left and did an entrepreneurial venture in the Twin Cities, and I really learned loyalty is driven by understanding the customer at an empathetic level.”
REI, she said, was a clear fit.
“We believe that life outside is a life well lived, and I believe a life outside is a life well lived,” she said. “So that very much aligns with my values.”
What’s Coming for REI in 2026
Shane pointed to new vendor partnerships and assortment expansions as highlights for 2026, including a push to help customers think beyond gear basics. For example, building out what she called “crafting the campsite”: French press coffee, pancakes, the full experience.
Technology investments aimed at making the online shopping journey easier are also in the works. And throughout, Shane said, REI’s customer base will be the check on whether any of it lands.
“What I love about our customer base is they will hold us accountable to make sure that any solution that we deliver is in line with our values and in line with what they expect from us,” she said. “So it’ll be a fun journey.”
