Lululemon founder is ‘long-term-driven’ for company
Chip Wilson uses transit ad and blog to encourage greatness from yoga-wear giant
Lululemon Athletica (Nasdaq:LULU) founder Chip Wilson has opinions on many topics, but he shied away from answering a question about what three moves he would make were he ever asked to return as CEO.
“I know what they are, but then it’s kind of like giving the competition too much information – as I’m the largest shareholder of Lululemon, as I’ve seen in a past CEO who had three-year options, her goal was to give away those ideas and build her name brand,” Wilson said in an interview with Business in Vancouver. “I’m long-term-driven for Lululemon, so it would be folly for me to do that.”
What isn’t folly is Wilson’s desire to see the company – which ranks at No. 7 on BIV’s list of B.C.’s most profitable companies – excel. More than a decade after he stood down as CEO and a year and a half after he quit the board of directors, he has found a novel way of exerting influence from outside the yoga-wear chain’s Kitsilano headquarters.
Over the summer, he bought space on the transit shelter outside the front door on Cornwall Street for a poster to promote his elevatelululemon.com blog. It contains three critical yet constructive entries so far, including an open letter to shareholders and a congratulatory note about the second-quarter results.
“I thought it was better for me to come off the board and see what I could do to influence the company from the outside,” he said. “I’ve been more public lately, but I thought I’d take the bus shelter out, because I wanted to influence Lululemon to be as great as I know it can be.
“It’s run so well and it’s operated so well, but there’s a big difference between operations and vision. I just don’t think it’s getting the valuations that it used to get for being a leader in the marketplace. That’s my take on it.”