Welcome to the Arena from ICR – Conversations with Today's Innovators & Business Leaders

The African American community has long been an under-appreciated and underserved segment in retail. One clothing retailer is tailoring their offerings to meet their specific needs, which has led to incredible brand loyalty, and huge profits.

Ken Seipel has served as Citi Trends CEO since November of 2024, and became the chairman of the Board of directors in April of 2025. Ken has extensive retail leadership experience, including serving as the CEO of West Marine from 2019 to 2021, and CEO of Gabriel Brothers from 2013 to 2017.

Ken joins us to talk about his storied career in retail, how Citi Trends is leveraging AI to make smarter decisions, and why he feels so confident in their future growth.

Highlights:
  • Ken's retail journey (2:05)
  • Turnaround experience (3:53)
  • The Scale of Citi Trends (5:03)
  • Off-price retail (6:35)
  • Serving the African American community (7:21)
  • Three-Tiered Product Strategy (10:08)
  • The Citi Trends Turnaround (12:38)
  • Leveraging AI (14:29)
  • What's driving their recent success? (16:21)
  • Gross Margin Expansion (19:35)
  • Expansion Strategy (21:44)
  • Focus for 2026 (24:46)


 

Links:
Ken Seipel LinkedIn
Citi Trends LinkedIn
Citi Trends Website
ICR LinkedIn
ICR Twitter
ICR Website

 

Feedback:
If you have questions about the show, or have a topic in mind you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producer, joe@lowerstreet.co

What is Welcome to the Arena from ICR – Conversations with Today's Innovators & Business Leaders?

In the increasingly crowded and competitive corporate and financial ecosystem, it’s harder than ever for companies to break through the clutter and be heard. The media, investors, agenda-driven influencers, even customers and competitors, are defining your business story on their terms. Therefore, it is imperative that companies take control and proactively drive the conversation with stakeholders in an effort to build & maintain equity value.

In Welcome to the Arena from ICR, Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of ICR, Tom Ryan, interviews key business and financial players who influence the fate of public or aspiring public companies in the capital markets. As a former Wall Street Journal ranked sell-side equity analyst and the founder of one of the largest strategic communications firms in the world, Tom understands what it takes to navigate this complex environment.

This is a forum for CEOs, CFOs, institutional investors, sell-side analysts, financial journalists, private equity professionals and other financial community participants to share their stories and give advice in an open and candid conversation.

For more information, visit http://www.icrinc.com