Lululemon appoints a Nike veteran as its new CEO

Lululemon today named Heidi O’Neill, a 26-year Nike veteran, as its next CEO, ending a monthslong search to replace Calvin McDonald, who stepped down from the top job after six years at the company.

O’Neill, most recently Nike’s president of consumer, product, and brand, will start September 8 and be based in Lululemon’s Vancouver headquarters. The choice signals where Lululemon’s board thinks the company needs to go next—and it’s worth asking whether they’ve gotten the diagnosis right.

For most of the last decade, Lululemon was one of the fastest-growing apparel brands on the planet. Under McDonald, who took over as CEO in 2018, the company more than tripled its annual revenue from $2.6 billion to $10.6 billion, expanded into 30 countries, and turned a cult yoga label into a global fashion powerhouse whose blazers and trousers competed for closet space with workwear brands. China became its second-largest market. Its footwear line, launched in 2022 after years of development, opened up a whole new revenue stream.

Then growth stalled. Last year it slowed to 10%, down from 19% the year before, dragged by U.S. tariffs, weaker consumer spending, and a string of product missteps including a widely panned Disney collaboration. Chip Wilson, Lululemon’s controversial founder and largest individual shareholder, took out a full-page Wall Street Journal ad harshly criticizing the company’s direction. This caused the stock to tumble and possibly contributed to McDonald’s decision to leave.

But now, the company is hoping to turn the page. In an announcement, Lululemon’s board called O’Neill “a visionary, consumer-focused executive” with a track record of “driving disruptive change and growth at scale.” During her tenure at Nike, the company grew revenue from $9 billion to more than $45 billion. Her role was eliminated last spring as new CEO Elliott Hill restructured the company in an attempt to reverse years of sluggish sales.

Still, it’s unclear whether Lululemon will succeed by following Nike’s playbook. In many ways, Lululemon built its empire by doing the opposite of what the activewear giant has done. It is known for tightly curated drops instead of constant collabs, an elevated wardrobe ethos instead of stadium-scale marketing, and a fabric obsession instead of athlete endorsements.

Nike’s recent struggles have been blamed, in part, on a drift toward direct-to-consumer scale at the expense of product distinctiveness—exactly the trap Lululemon needs to avoid. Historically, Lululemon’s best-selling products have been successful because of their distinct fabrics.

The Align franchise has become a $1 billion business because of Lululemon’s buttery-soft proprietary Nulu fabric. The ABC pants and Daydrift trousers have been hits because Lululemon spent years developing fabric that looked work-appropriate but felt like activewear. That kind of product intuition is closer to a fashion house than a sportswear giant.

O’Neill will inherit a company that has lost trust with consumers. This spring, the climate advocacy group Action Speaks Louder built a fake brand called Mumumelon, which made copies of Lululemon staples but with renewable energy. The campaign drew yoga influencers into a public conversation about how slowly Lululemon has moved on its own sustainability commitments. Lululemon has called Mumumelon “disappointing.”

The activists behind Mumumelon understood something Lululemon’s board may have missed: The brand’s customers aren’t asking for a bigger Lululemon. They’re asking for a better one—one whose products, supply chain, and point of view still feel considered. The world will be watching to see if O’Neill is able to steer Lululemon out of these choppy waters.

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