Muhammad Umar
Fireside #4 Speaker
Muhammad Umar serves as the co-op’s Divisional Vice President of Talent, Diversity and Change Management. He joined REI in late 2021. In this role, he is responsible for talent management, recruiting, employee sentiment, organizational change, and learning and development. He is an author of the co-op’s people strategy which is tasked at building the workforce needed for future success at REI. Muhammad also supports team members who are focused on workforce diversity and learning, and managing large scale organizational change as the co-op transforms its business and ways of working to support its climate and racial equity, diversity and inclusion commitments.
Muhammad joined REI from Nordstrom where he led diversity, inclusion and belonging, along with talent and culture. Prior to that, he was the director of change management at Target, with a focus on enterprise transformation. Additionally, he has helped a number of companies work through merger and acquisition activities. Before Target, Muhammad spent 15+ years in management consulting at Booz, Accenture, Deloitte and Towers Watson.
Muhammad has a bachelor’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, an MBA from Mississippi State and is a certified Change Management advanced practitioner from Georgetown University.
Muhammad resides in Minneapolis with his wife Francesca and three kids and has adapted to Minnesota winters. He grew up actively enjoying the outdoors in New York City parks and the Catskill and Adirondack mountains.