Lululemon Athletica founder Dennis “Chip” Wilson left the company’s board in 2015, but he has been a thorn in the activewear giant’s side for months, resuming last autumn a years-long campaign in which he has frequently and publicly accused it of becoming a lumbering corporate dinosaur that has lost its edge.
Wilson ramped up that pressure in late December by launching a proxy battle to force the departure of three directors who are up for re-election at its next annual shareholder meeting, taking place in the spring, even as it looks for a new CEO. Last month, he went further, saying that in fact more than three directors needed to go. (Wilson himself is not running, saying, “This campaign for change cannot be about me. It is about recommitting Lululemon to genuine creative leadership.”)
Wilson’s recent moves have gotten a lot of attention, but it’s hardly the first time he has lobbed this kind of criticism at the company he founded in 1998. A firebrand whose comments have often been seen as exclusionary and even racist, Wilson left the board after tangling with the company’s C-suite over strategy and culture, but he still owns an 8.4% stake in the company. A decade ago, he wrote an open letter in which he made essentially the same complaints he’s making today—only for the company to triple revenue in the following nine years.
