Lululemon is being haunted by its founder
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More than a decade after leaving his athleisure company, Chip Wilson is still trying to steer what he sees as a sinking ship. He’s currently trying to convince shareholders to overhaul Lululemon’s board, which prompted the company to call Wilson’s perspectives “misguided” and “outdated” yesterday in its first public response to the founder. “Mr. Wilson has shown that he does not have a full understanding of the business today or the brand’s future potential and remains intractably focused on the past,” Lululemon wrote, urging shareholders to back the company’s existing board members. “The board has not provided me with detail on where our disagreements lie,” Wilson, who has a history of making insensitive comments, said after Lululemon released their For context, Lululemon’s revenue tripled in nine years after Wilson left the board in 2015, per Fortune, but its stock is now down ~75% from a 2023 peak. US sales have slid amid competition from the likes of Vuori and Alo, plus tariffs and a general consumer spending pullback. Wilson, Lululemon’s second-largest shareholder, has bashed the company’s DEI efforts and argued that Lululemon lost its “cool” factor. “A company bereft of a visionary loses its singular voice for product and long term strategy,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal ad last year. Looking ahead…shareholders will vote on Wilson’s and Lululemon’s competing board nominees on June 25. |