Reporting directly to the Chief Technology Officer, the VP, Technology - Digital Commerce & Customer will lead the strategic and technical vision for the company’s digital commerce platforms, marketing technology stack, and customer engagement systems. This executive will be responsible for delivering modern, seamless, scalable, and personalized customer experiences across all digital touchpoints, including loyalty and membership programs. The strategic and influential role will be at the forefront of our technology innovation to drive a differentiated customer experience and advance the co-op as an AI-forward organization with areas like agentic commerce. As such, this role demands a blend of transformational leadership, technical expertise, strategic thinking, and personal leadership to drive growth and innovation in a competitive retail landscape.

Digital Commerce Technology Strategy & Execution

• Own the end-to-end digital commerce & recommerce ecosystem (eCommerce platforms, mobile apps, omnichannel integrations).
• Reinvent our digital commerce stack with platform modernization, scalability, and performance optimization.
• Partner with business stakeholders to define and deliver digital roadmaps aligned with growth goals.

Marketing Technology Leadership

• Oversee the MarTech stack including CDPs, CRMs, offer management, personalization, email platforms, personalization engines, and analytics tools.
• Enable data-driven marketing through robust integrations and customer segmentation capabilities.
• Collaborate with marketing to enhance campaign automation, attribution modelling, and ROI tracking.

Membership & Loyalty Platforms

• Lead the strategy, implementation, and optimization of loyalty and membership platforms.
• Integrate loyalty systems with digital commerce and marketing tools to enable personalized experiences and rewards.
• Partner with marketing and customer experience teams to evolve loyalty programs based on customer insights and business goals.

Innovation Leadership, Technology & Architecture

• Bring outside-in view, “always on” tracking of industry evolution and technology innovation via personal research and networking.
• Lead architecture decisions for digital, MarTech, and loyalty platforms, ensuring security, scalability, and interoperability, including with enterprise systems.
• Develop business cases, evaluate and implement emerging technologies (AI/ML, headless commerce, composable architecture, personalization, predictive analytics).
• Leverage AI to leapfrog legacy platforms and deliver differentiating customer experience, such as personalization,

Team Leadership & Vendor Management

• Seeker and developer of talent, build and mentor a highly-performing team of architects, engineers, and analysts.
• Oversee and motivate a hybrid team composed of employees and contractors across geographies and time zones.

Financial Leadership & Vendor Management

• Build and manage budgets and forecasts, maximizing value delivery within set guardrails.
• In partnership with the Technology procurement team, manage vendor relationships, contracts, and performance within scope of responsibility.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with business stakeholders, including product management, marketing, customer experience, member and customer planning, and operations to align Technology roadmaps and priorities.
• Collaborate closely with other senior technology leaders to ensure seamless integration of solutions and best in class uptime, performance, customer and user experience.
• Serve as a bridge between business and technology, translating strategic business goals into a technology solution, roadmap, and technical execution.

Professional Qualifications and Experience

Technical & Strategic Expertise

• 10+ years in omnichannel retail digital commerce and marketing technology leadership roles.
• Hands-on leadership experience in AI-forward organizations and strategy delivery.
• Deep understanding of eCommerce platforms (e.g., Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce).
• Experience with MarTech tools (e.g., Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Adobe Experience Platform, Iterable).
• Experience in loyalty and membership platforms (e.g., Salesforce Loyalty Management, Talon.One).
• Strong grasp of system, process and data architecture, APIs, cloud platforms (AWS, Azure), middleware and integration frameworks.
• 10+ years in agile, frontend and backend software engineering, including CICD, web and mobile, search, ontology and most common development platforms.
• Visionary, experience architecting progressive solutions and driving people, process and technology transformation to achieve target state and enable business goals.
• Track record of delivering superior customer and user technology experience.
• Strong analytical mindset, pragmatic and able to solve complex problems with effective solutions.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field; MBA or advanced degree preferred.

Leadership & Business Acumen

• Proven success in leading digital commerce technology transformations and scaling digital platforms.
• Strong financial and operational acumen; experience managing complex programs and budgets.
• Experience leading geographically dispersed hybrid organizations composed of employees, contractors and consultants, fostering strong engagement and collaboration.
• Highly collaborative, seek inclusion of internal and external subject matter experts to architect future-proof differentiating solutions.
• Strong executive presence with ability to influence and communicate effectively across the organization, up to C-level.

Customer-at-the-Center Mindset

• Results and outcome obsessed.
• Passion for challenging the status quo and designing a compelling future state, delivering exceptional customer experiences through technology.
• Experience with personalization, loyalty programs, and customer journey mapping.

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.