Good morning! Mexico sues Google over the Gulf, an at-home cervical cancer screening is approved, and REI’s new CEO must turn around the outdoors retailer and win back worker trust.
– Trust fall. Mary Beth Laughton, the former CEO of Athleta, became the CEO of the outdoors retailer REI just over a month ago.
At Athleta, Laughton oversaw the brand’s push into women’s sports, signing major deals with athletes like Simone Biles and Allyson Felix. She now takes the reins at REI, a $3.53 billion-in-revenue company struggling to win back the trust and support of its workforce and customers. My colleague Phil Wahba reported last summer on the worries of current and former REI employees (known as Green Vests), many of whom have unionized and voiced concerns that REI was losing sight of its progressive roots, like supporting climate-friendly initiatives and public lands, and instead becoming too corporate. They objected to appointments like those of execs from ExxonMobil and McKinsey to REI’s board. Now, Phil has one of Laughton’s first interviews as REI CEO.
One of the first things Laughton did as CEO was apologize for a choice the brand made in January: endorsing President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum. Since his confirmation, Burgum “has called for extracting natural resources from pristine land in Alaska, building housing on public lands and supporting the coal industry”—choices that are antithetical to what many REI workers and customers believe in. “Let me be clear, signing that letter was a mistake,” Laughton said of the endorsement. “Our public lands are under attack.” REI’s former CEO said the company wanted “a seat at the table” with the new administration.
“One way to show your values is to show action,” Laughton told Phil. Next up is negotiating with employees’ union and, at the same time, recovering from REI’s third straight year of net losses.
The new CEO argues that REI needs both. “We have to make sure we’re making profits in order to continue to live our values and our purpose,” she says.
Read Phil’s full story here.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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