00:00Lululemon's incoming CEO just gave her very first speech to the company's employees.
00:05She is promising to get the athleisure brand back on track.
00:08Her name is Heidi O'Neill, and my co-anchor Romaine Bostic,
00:12along with our colleagues over at Bloomberg News, broke this story.
00:16Romaine, give us the details. What exactly is her message here?
00:20Yeah, well, I mean, they just had a big meeting in Vancouver.
00:22It's actually still going on with employees.
00:24And remember, she doesn't actually take over to CEO until early September here.
00:28So she wasn't expected to be there, but she came in via satellite Zoom or whatever you want to call
00:33it in here.
00:34It was a very brief statement, but basically kind of a bit of a rah-rah speech.
00:37The key quote there was this idea of, don't underestimate me, don't underestimate Lululemon.
00:42She said, since the announcement, some people, and I'm going to get to that in a second,
00:46have been underestimating me, some have been underestimating Lululemon.
00:50That's fine. We'll let the work answer.
00:53This brand's best work is still ahead.
00:56Now, of course, she didn't name anybody.
00:57She said some people, but there is one particular person that has taken a little bit of issue with the
01:02management of Lululemon.
01:04Well, name some names here. Let's go.
01:05That is the founder, Chip Wilson.
01:07A vocal guy.
01:08Yeah, and effectively left the company almost a decade, more than a decade ago here.
01:12But he's still the largest active shareholder.
01:15His main holding company owns about 3% of his shares.
01:18Other individual people in his family account for another couple percentage here.
01:22He's been very vocal.
01:22He's proposed three board members to take over at the next annual meeting, which they still have not set a
01:28date for,
01:29but that will come sometime before Heidi O'Neill actually takes over here.
01:33So it'll be interesting to whether he can sort of disrupt the apple cart here.
01:36But for right now, Heidi O'Neill is the person who's going to be leading this company, barring some major
01:41turn of events at that annual meeting.
01:43Well, it's fascinating because Chip Wilson, okay, he's very vocal.
01:46He's been pretty visibly out there with his skepticism here.
01:51But he's not alone because you take a look at how shares have performed since she was named a CEO
01:56on April 22nd.
01:57They're down about 26%.
01:59Yeah, there were some people that are a little worried about her background.
02:02She spent about 30 years at Nike.
02:04She was actually rumored for quite some time to be a potential CEO at Nike before Elliot Hill got the
02:09job.
02:09And there are some people that are saying that, do you want sort of someone who I guess is more
02:14of a traditionalist?
02:14They want somebody that.
02:15But she's got a lot of experience.
02:16Remember, she ran the direct-to-consumer brand.
02:18She was really instrumental in building up their line of women's apparel here.
02:22So she has a line in to maybe potentially benefiting Lululemon.
02:25But I think people wanted to see somebody who, in their view, might be a little bit more of a
02:29visionary rather than just a long-term corporate person.
02:33Absolutely.
02:33Well, she has a message for the haters here.
02:35Don't underestimate her.
02:36It's going to be really interesting to see what she does once she does take over in September.
02:41Of course, I know you will be all over Romain Bostic with that scoop.
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