Meet the 2026 Class of Young Leaders Shaping Surf, Outdoor, and Active Lifestyle

Every year, the team at Shop-Eat-Surf Outdoor puts out a list worth paying attention to: the surf, outdoor, and active lifestyle leaders age 40 and under who are quietly running the machine behind the brands you know. Their 2026 Class of Young Leaders just landed, and it is a strong one. Seven executives, all under 40, all putting up real numbers in ecommerce, operations, merchandising, and brand building.

We wanted to spotlight it here, because this is exactly the kind of story Malakye has cared about since 2002: the actual people behind the products, and the jobs they grew into. What follows is a short summary of who made the list and why. Shop-Eat-Surf Outdoor reported and published the full profiles, so read the complete piece at the original article.

Evin Catlett, 40, VP Ecommerce and Growth Marketing, Skullcandy

According to Shop-Eat-Surf Outdoor, Catlett grew sales in her channels by more than 100 percent in three years and led a re-platform of Skullcandy's global ecommerce sites in just 90 days, a sprint that reportedly earned a Shopify case study. She also launched the brand's first loyalty program and tripled the size of her team through a tough market.

Jeremy Glik, 30, Women's General Merchandise Manager and Jr. VP, Glik's

A fifth-generation member of the family behind Glik's, the Midwest boutique chain founded in 1897, Jeremy came up through merchandising and product in Boulder before returning home to St. Louis. Alongside his cousin Elliot, he has focused on company culture and brought in modern tooling: dynamic reporting and analytics, a homegrown planning system, a digitized buyer-training program, and an AI-built store-transfer process.

Elliot Glik, 32, Merchandise Manager, Young Men's and Men's Active, Jr. VP, Glik's

Since joining in 2020, Elliot has guided men's merchandising through the pandemic and a shake-up in the surf industry, adjusting the brand assortment as conditions changed. He helped build the Glik's 1897 private-label line, took on new store planning and real estate, and leads community and charity work, including the Little Bit Foundation.

Casey Shedd, 38, President, AFTCO

Shedd joined AFTCO in 2012 as an ecommerce director and became President in 2019. Colleagues credit him with modernizing and expanding a 68-year-old family fishing business while holding to its values, including AFTCO's longstanding 10 percent Pledge. Per the article, the company and Shedd family have contributed more than $9 million to fisheries conservation, habitat restoration, and marine science over the past 20 years.

Andrew Carter, 40, Chief Operating Officer, Skullcandy

Known as AC, Carter is a 15-year Skullcandy veteran who rose from VP of Operations to COO. Shop-Eat-Surf Outdoor reports that he streamlined and de-risked the brand's manufacturing base through waves of geographic and political headwinds, increased product margin through value engineering and supplier negotiations, and built a first-of-its-kind logistics partnership that cut freight costs and sped time to market.

Logan Roberts, 37, Founder and VP, Marsh Wear

A fishing captain, Roberts founded Marsh Wear in his attic in 2010 and grew it into a nationally recognized brand now carried by more than 400 retailers. Based in Charleston, South Carolina, the brand blends fishing, hunting, and surf culture. AFTCO acquired Marsh Wear in 2017, and per the article, Roberts has scaled it beyond its Southeast roots while keeping its cultural core and supporting conservation partners.

Natalie Flowers, 34, Director of Digital Marketing, Black Diamond Equipment

Flowers added QR codes to every Black Diamond product, unifying customer data across wholesale and retail and giving buyers post-purchase guides on their gear. She also helped move the consumer site to Shopify and rebuilt the brand's seasonal go-to-market planning through cross-functional workshops that aligned ecommerce, marketing, and product teams.

The common threads

Read them together and a pattern jumps out. Family legacy shows up again and again, from the Glik cousins to the Shedd family's stewardship of AFTCO. So does mentorship, community, and conservation, whether that is fisheries science, land trusts, or a charity golf tournament. And every one of these leaders is putting up measurable results, in ecommerce growth, supply chain efficiency, and brand expansion. These are not figureheads. They are operators building real businesses.

That is the reason we tell these stories. Behind every brand on this list is a machine of designers, developers, marketers, merchandisers, operations people, and ecommerce teams, and every seat is a job that a real person grew into. Malakye has connected the action sports, outdoor, and active lifestyle industries with their people since 2002, so you can see the companies and the humans behind them, not just a logo. If a career like these excites you, explore the companies shaping the industry and watch the jobs board.

Full credit and the complete profiles belong to Shop-Eat-Surf Outdoor, which reports on this industry better than anyone.