Lululemon ends proxy battle with founder

Not with a fizzle, but with two board seats.

Lululemon has settled its beef with founder Chip Wilson, offering him two board picks in return for a pledge to not disparage the company for 18 months, among other conditions.

We have to wonder: What would the company have traded for Wilson to refrain from any mud-slinging for 20 months? But we digress…

As a result of the agreement, two of Wilson’s board nominees—former On sneaker maker co-CEO Marc Maurer and former ESPN chief marketing officer Laura Gentile—will join the board following the company’s annual meeting on June 25.

Lululemon “agreed to appoint an additional director with product and brand expertise in apparel” by the first of October, according to a press release. (The board already has a finance executive—Teri List, the former CFO of Gap.)

Additionally, Lululemon will make a donation to Kitsilano Beach in Vancouver, where the company was founded, to support athletics, art, and landscaping. Previously, Wilson asked the athletic apparel company to reimburse expenses tied to the proxy fight, per CNBC.

This whole proxy saga started in December 2025, when Wilson, the company’s largest individual shareholder, launched the boardroom battle, nominating three independent directors to Lululemon’s board after the departure of CEO Calvin McDonald. At the time, Wilson released a statement saying, “I am deeply concerned about what appears to be a tremendous failure by the Board to competently plan for the future and manage an effective succession process.” (CFO Meghan Frank and Chief Commercial Officer André Maestrini served as interim co-CEOs for a time after McDonald left.)

Wilson increasingly took to critiquing the company’s decisions, including casting doubt on its April 2026 CEO nominee. He was already known for making inflammatory public comments: In January 2024, Wilson told Forbes he didn’t agree with Lululemon’s “whole diversity and inclusion thing.”

In recent weeks, Lululemon took the boardroom drama public, publishing a shareholder letter on May 18 that called Wilson’s perspective “misguided” and outdated.”

“Mr. Wilson has shown that he does not have a full understanding of the business today or the brand’s future potential and remains intractably focused on the past,” the company wrote, encouraging board members to vote for existing board members.

The board said it “firmly believes that replacing any of Lululemon’s directors with Mr. Wilson’s less qualified nominees would endorse his misguided perspectives, deprive the company of critical skills and expertise, and risk derailing our progress in an especially pivotal time for our business and organization.”

The drama! But now…it’s all over. Let’s see what Wilson has to say about it at the 19-month mark.