If you want to score a meeting with Chip Wilson, you better be prepared to sweat.
The founder of Lululemon Athletica Inc. likes to start his days hiking a 2.9 kilometer (1.8 mile) trail up the face of Vancouver’s Grouse Mountain. It’s his preferred way to conduct meetings and he’s sometimes accompanied by as many as 20 people seeking advice, funding or just a workout.
Now he’s considering bringing his unique sensibilities back to the Lululemon boardroom, which he left in 2015 after repeatedly clashing with the company’s leadership and criticizing its shift from the scrappy, entrepreneurial roots he laid down.
“My goal is to be back on a public board in 2019,” Wilson, 63, said in New York last week while promoting his book, “Little Black Stretchy Pants,” which details the rise and -- in his telling -- fall of Lululemon. He says the yogawear maker is his first choice for a board seat, though he’s still exploring alternative ways to share his expertise, including advising other technical apparel companies.
‘Missed Opportunity’
Even though Wilson said he’s optimistic about the firm’s new chief executive officer, Calvin McDonald, any return to the company he founded in 1998 could prove awkward. He’s spent years railing at Lululemon and his book bemoans its “five years of missed opportunity" since 2013, arguing it failed to take advantage of its leadership position and lost ground to rivals like Under Armour Inc. and Nike Inc.
Lululemon declined to comment on Wilson’s plans.
Wilson’s dissatisfaction with the company might surprise those who’ve tracked its share price, which has more than doubled in the past year. That’s made Wilson one of Canada’s richest people, with a $3.6 billion fortune, including a $2.4 billion stake in Lululemon.
“Any other entrepreneur would love to create what Chip Wilson created," said David Ian Gray, principal of Canadian retail consulting firm DIG360. “The margins were off the charts and they still are. The profitability of the brand is incredible."
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