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avatar for Laura Swapp

Laura Swapp

REI
Director of Next Gen Marketing

Laura Swapp leads REI’s Marketing strategies designed to reach new audiences and change the conversation about what it means to be a purpose-driven brand. She is responsible for developing and overseeing various go-to-market approaches to reach new audiences, with a primary focus on women and millennials. Her work spans community and brand partnerships, influencer strategies, content, casting and partnership with REI’s integrated marketing team and cross divisional leaders.


Most recently, Swapp led “Force of Nature,” one of REI’s biggest initiatives for 2017. This holistic campaign was designed to address the outdoor industry’s gender gap and disproportionally put women first in order to “level the playing field for women” in the outdoors. Swapp was accountable for building and executing a comprehensive strategy which spanned customer insights, creative focus, integrated & experiential marketing, community engagement and the co-op’s local and national partnerships.


Swapp is also vice president of REI’s Foundation, the charitable arm of the specialty retailer. In prior roles at REI, Laura has led brand partnerships, multicultural marketing and the co-op’s diversity and inclusion functions.

Prior to working at REI, Swapp held senior Diversity & Inclusion positions at McKesson Corporation, Starbucks, and Catalyst Inc. She has been quoted in The New York Times, Fortune, Forbes and Fast Company and frequently speaks to public audiences of matters of importance to the co-op and the topics of social impact and contemporary D&I.

Swapp received her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from University of California San Diego, and her Masters in Applied Sociology from Cal State University San Marcos. She has built a career on challenging the status-quo and pushing organizations to break the rules.

She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family, and as a native San Diegan, can often be found chasing sun and waves in beachy places.