No. of Recommendations: 3
Chip Wilson (founder) issued a letter
https://www.creativityfirstlulu.com/(BTW: I agree with Chip)
Highlights
* lululemon's challenges are rooted in the Board's failure to understand the brand. The Board allowed or enabled actions that consistently eroded the Company's premium position.
* The new CEO announcement shows the core of broken governance. The existing Board does not have the skillset to hire a world-class brand/product person who can deliver on the newest zeitgeist or style of the moment. The market response to the hiring of Heidi O'Neill creates an unnecessarily challenging start for her, and her selection doubles down on the Board's broken strategy.
* Billions of dollars in brand power have been lost, which cannot be regained with the same selection pattern of directors who lululemon continues to onboard. lululemon is not a toothpaste brand. Exiting one Proctor and Gamble bean counter on the Board for another will not fix lululemon's decline.
* Current Board members lack the skills to run a company whose core values are derived from innovation and culture. The Board is incapable of fixing itself because what it needs makes current directors uncomfortable: an injection of passionate, creative renegades who have a vision that will shake up the status quo.
* The core strategy has been disconnected from lululemon because internal brand and product leaders are trying to replicate mass-market, lower quality athletic retailers.
* The Board's significant overlapping professional network creates a club that destroys true independence and perpetuates an entrenched culture preventing necessary change.
Negotiations with the Board have failed despite a range of multiple offers for a long-term standstill, which included an offer that could have lasted as long as three annual meetings if our three director nominees were appointed to the then ten-person Board.
* The Board's self-interest and personal history have prevented any actual productive talks, including its demanding of an at least million-dollar escrow account for Wilson in a novel non-disparagement provision, which the Company failed to disclose in its preliminary proxy statement filing.
