Christine Day likes to avoid the spotlight.
The Lululemon Athletica Inc. CEO seldom goes to women’s networking groups and never fills out forms to be eligible to win awards.
“It’s not that I’m reluctant to participate in the women’s forums or be in the media. I just don’t like to cross the line into self-promotion,” she explained.
Day then rattled off the names of the six people who report directly to her – Sheree Waterson, Margaret Wheeler, Delaney Schweitzer, Deanne Schweitzer, John Currie and Kathryn Henry – stressing that they play a key role in Lululemon’s success.
“Just having one face out there, I think, isn’t fair to the work that the rest of the management team does,” she said.
Chair Chip Wilson continues to own about one-third of the company that he co-founded, but he no longer attends meetings related to day-to-day management. Instead, he focuses on longer-term projects and on product creation.
Day’s activity in the business community outside Lululemon largely stems from her involvement in a CEO Forum Group cohort that includes executives such as Pharmasave Drugs CEO Sue Paish, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers CEO Peter Blake, Black Press owner David Black and others.
That group of executives meets once every six weeks and discusses both personal and corporate issues central to running a large enterprise.
Day and Blake, for example, have discussed what it’s like to assume corporate reins from a company’s founder.
The two get on famously, and Blake even nominated Day to be a winner of Business in Vancouver’s 2011 Influential Women in Business awards.
“[He] ended up apologizing to me because he thought ‘I’ve upset you,’” Day said with a laugh.
In fact, she was flattered because it was a genuine honour from peers and not something that she had actively sought.
Day clearly has a humble side.
She likes speaking with university students because it involves helping them learn how to excel in business.
In January, however, she was taken aback while walking around the University of Victoria campus.
“It was embarassing,” Day said. “This girl came up to me and says, ‘You’re Christine Day.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God. I’ve never been treated like a star.’”
The 48-year-old led Starbucks Corp.’s $1.5 billion Asia Pacific group before she joined Lululemon in January 2008 to be the yogawear giant’s COO. Six months later, she became CEO.
Her Starbucks career started in 1986 – before current Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz bought Starbucks brand rights and started to grow the global coffee giant. She was one of the company’s first couple-dozen employees.
“From the very beginning, I recognized in her very unique qualities – natural leader, strategic thinker,” Schultz told BIV. “She had strength and capabilities well beyond her years. When I met her I knew she was capable for big things.”
Schultz added that Day was a strong advocate of the culture and social values on which Starbucks prides itself.
Day has focused on those same values at Lululemon.
More than one-third of Lululemon store managers make more than $100,000 per year. Store staff, or “educators,” as Day calls them, make between $18 and $20 per hour.
“With incentive pay, our [compensation] model is designed to pay higher than market average rates,” she said.
Her strategy to help the environment is to pay extra to ensure factories that produce Lululemon-wear operate in a sustainable manner.
The alternative of saving money by cutting corners on sustainability at the factory and then trumpeting a donation to an environmental charity is less appealing, she said.
“That’s what I see way too many people doing in terms of greenwashing. Really, what you make sure at the fundamental level of your business is that you’ve created an environment when people can be a success at what matters,” she said.
About three-quarters of Lululemon products continue to be made outside North America, with the lion’s share being made in China.
She is slowly growing the percentage of production that takes place in North America, but lower Asian production costs remain a key factor in Lululemon’s profitability.
Profits at the 3,700-employee Lululemon grew 72% to $96.8 million in its last quarter, which ended on October 31, compared with the same quarter in 2009. Revenue in the quarter grew 56% to $175.8 million.
Shareholders who held Lululemon stock in March 2008 have watched their investment grow more than 1,100% by early February.
Outside work, she and husband Pat have three kids: Kevin and Kaile, who are in their 20s, and Connor who is 11.
Winter weekends are spent either cross-country or downhill skiing while summer ones are often spent boating or hiking.
During the week, Day finds time for yoga, pilates and jogging. •
