Anne Wiper is a brand focused product leader. She is currently the VP/GMM of Smartwool, a VF brand. Anne has headed up product for 17 years, taking the company from a small outdoor sock brand, to a leader in the outdoor and ski industry. Anne has an MBA from the University of Denver and has applied that to a career in product creation.
Anne started her career at Nike, as part of a small start up team to launch ACG. In her time at Nike, she helped take ACG to $250m in 4 years, led Women's Apparel, jumped at an opportunity to work on Running footwear, which led to managing the Nike EU Running business in Europe.
From Nike, Anne led the Salomon business in footwear and helped launch the apparel program out of the Salomon Design Center in Boulder. She managed teams in Boulder and Annecy, France. The creation of the adventure racing footwear, the XA Pro Series, has grown to become of the foundation of the Salomon business. Anne then went to Pearl Izumi to head up footwear. When presented with the opportunity to work with a natural, renewable fiber, with a great Colorado based brand, Anne joined Smartwool in 2006.
Anne always knew we had to do better in how we make product. As part of her ACG time at Nike, she helped pioneer Nike Regrind, now known as Nike Grind. The first stage was using all the waste in manufacturing process. That waste was recycled into new outsoles in ACG shoes. That program has grown to take post consumer waste and has built not just new shoes, but also basketball courts, playing fields, playgrounds and more.
In her current role at Smartwool, she is leading the project to drive the development of regenerative certification and circularity in materials, with the first fully circular sock debuting April, 2023. We need a revolution in textiles and Smartwool is leading in this space.
In addition to her work at Smartwool, Anne is driven to give back to the community. She served on the board of EMSC & SMBA for many years, currently serves on the SOS Outreach board, mentored in the Camber program for 7 years and volunteered as a rescue swimmer with Expand Beyond in 2022.
Outside of work, Anne is a life long outdoor athlete. She is an avid open water distance swimmer, snowboarder, cyclist, hiker, beekeeper and gardener.