Wilma Wallace (Gap & REI) on Nurturing Future Leadership With Values & Purpose

Wilma Wallace (Gap & REI) on Nurturing Future Leadership With Values & Purpose

From How I Hire by Noto Group, Roy Notowitz

June 4, 2025 · 27 min

About this episode

Wilma Wallace discusses her extensive experience in recruiting and mentoring leadership teams at Gap and REI, focusing on values and purpose in leadership.

Executive leader and board member Wilma Wallace joins Roy to discuss her experience recruiting and mentoring leadership teams at Gap and REI during her extensive career at both legacy brands. After spending over 20 years in senior roles at Gap, Wilma served as Chief Diversity and Social Impact Officer, as well as Chief Legal Officer at REI. In 2024, she retired to focus on impacting change, particularly from an equity, access, and justice perspective, on several boards. Her work centers social impact, environmental justice, and human rights in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Wilma and Roy discuss accounting for and addressing changing levels of trust across organizations, internal succession planning versus seeking external candidates, the link between alignment of purpose and successful performance in leadership teams, and much more.      Highlights from our conversation include: How Wilma evaluates candidates’ leadership abilities (4:18) Creating an environment that fosters high potential future leaders (6:48) Recruiting external talent (8:26) Leadership assessment practices at Gap & REI (11:08) Ensuring that an organization’s culture…

People in this episode

Host: Roy Notowitz

Guest: Wilma Wallace

Topics covered

  • leadership
  • recruitment
  • mentoring
  • diversity
  • social impact
  • organizational culture

Keywords

  • equity
  • access
  • justice
  • trust
  • succession planning
  • performance

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Gap, REI

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