Regional Director of Stores, Great Plains - North

REI Co-op is united around discovering, building and celebrating better ways of working in this world, all so that folks can find and pursue a love of the outdoors. When you work for the co-op, you do your best work with the support to live your best life. And you play a part in shaping the future of the outdoors, for people and our planet. 

While this role is remote, candidates should be prepared to travel up to 60% of the time. Candidates should be based in the greater Chicago metropolitan area. While Chicago is the preferred location, qualified candidates based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area may also be considered.

Your Job Map (the overall purpose of the job and how the job contributes to achieving department/company objectives)

The Regional Director (RD) is responsible for providing strategic leadership and operational guidance for REI’s stores within their assigned region. The RD is directly accountable for monitoring and achieving regional performance goals across revenue, membership, operational KPIs, profitability targets, employee engagement, team development and driving continuous improvement to strategies and tactics as necessary to consistently achieves or exceeds them.

The leader will play a key role in driving REI’s transformation agenda across REI’s stores by ensuring regional strategies are developed to achieve the Co-op’s long-term membership goals, increase growth opportunities, and ensuring our stores, our employees, and offerings reflect the outdoor needs of the communities, members, and customers in the markets we serve. This leader will help ensure REI is achieving its equity, diversity and inclusion goals and building a deep pool of diverse leadership talent to position the Co-op for growth and operational excellence. This leader will act as a positive change agent in support of the co-op and stores transformation plan driving a more active and strategic voice from the stores organization across the division, commercial organization, and the Co-op, while increasing accountability and bias for action.

This role creates an inclusive environment and develops diverse teams and leaders representing the communities we aspire to serve, including outreach to underserved groups, as well as strengthening current customer relationships in the region through new, innovative initiatives (e.g., new stores, , and partnerships).

Leading the Way (team leadership, coaching and development responsibilities for this “manager of staff”)

• As a member of the Leadership Forum, develops a deep understanding of, effectively communicates and broadly supports execution of company strategies and priorities.
• Translates company strategies into actionable divisional plans and executes successful delivery.
• Works cross-divisionally to drive execution of specific divisional and company strategies, initiatives and projects.
• Strengthens store staff’s access and connection to leadership through store visits, district conference calls and other means of communication; drives engagement and builds trust in REI’s leadership.
• Identifies and communicates key responsibilities and practices to ensure the organization promotes a successful attitude, confidence in leadership, and teamwork to achieve business results.
• Supports the implementation of company programs, procedures, methods, and practices to promote REI key messages.
• Challenges and inspires employees to achieve business results.
• Ensures employees adhere to legal and operational compliance requirements.
• Oversees training and development of employees directly and indirectly managed and makes effective staffing decisions.
• Conducts and ensures the completion of performance reviews.
• Provides coaching, direction, and leadership support to employees to achieve department, company and customer results.
• Establishes and maintains visibility within the department/division/region.
• Monitors operational statistics, reports trends, variances, and issues, and takes appropriate action.

Your Planning & Navigating Requirements (the plans the job is responsible for creating and executing, and how the job ensures they are implemented)

• Monitor and achieve regional and store organization performance goals. Drive adjustments to strategies and tactics as necessary to achieve regional and divisional goals.
• Ensure all stores consistently achieve or exceed revenue, membership, operational KPIs and profitability goals through effective use of short and long-term planning and expense control.
• Deliver consistent high standards of customer experience in stores in accordance with the Co-op Way
• Support Co-op wide initiatives with direct leadership participation
• Collaborates cross divisionally to ensure support and execution of regional business and people strategies.
• Attracts, recruits, trains, and develops diverse top talent at all levels that reflects the community, customers, and potential new customers within each region.
• Aligns with other Regional Directors, to ensure consistency in quality and best practices for the customer and employee experience.
• Influences cross-divisional partners to achieve Co-Op strategies and ensure local relevance.

Leadership Participation

• Regional Leadership Team
• Leadership Forum

Key Metrics Accountable for

• Regional Membership Conversion
• Regional Payroll and Expense Management
• Regional Sales and Revenue
• Regional Order Conversion
• Regional key customer metrics
• Regional Operating Profit
• Regional Employee engagement scores
• Regional REDI Metrics/KPIS
• Regional Hiring and Staffing Guidelines

At REI, we believe the outdoors is for all. We are committed to becoming a fully inclusive, anti-racist, multicultural organization. We know that there's strength in our diversity – that each employee brings unique skills, experiences, and perspectives. Every day you are driving change, fostering a culture of respect, and knowing you're backed by benefits that support your whole life. To work towards this commitment and fulfill our brand promise of inspiring and enabling a life outside for everyone, we seek employees who demonstrate different ways of working, create a sense of belonging, and actively listen and learn.  

Pay Transparency 

We are committed to practices that promote pay equity and transparency. As required by applicable Pay Transparency laws, REI provides a range of compensation for roles that may be hired in locations under these requirements. Factors that may be used to determine your actual salary may include a wide array of factors, including: your specific skills and experience, geographic location or other relevant factors.   

REI offers all regular employees a generous employee discount, access to health benefits, a retirement savings plan and accrued time off.  Click here for a detailed overview of benefits plans by employee profile.