The Kitsilano Chamber of Commerce plans to award Chip Wilson with a lifetime achievement award tonight at the Jewel Ballroom in the Vancouver Masonic Centre.
"Our board of directors felt the timing was appropriate with his recent announcement to step down from his day-to-day position at Lululemon Athletica and take a more strategic role as chairman of the board," said Julien Phipps, who is CEO of the 77-year-old Chamber of Commerce, which has about 600 members.
Wilson launched Lululemon in 1998 in a second-storey West 4th Avenue studio and proceeded to grow the company to become the 151-store yogawear chain it is today.
Wilson sold 48% of the company for $108 million to two private equity firms in 2005. He shed a further 12% two years later as part of the company's IPO.
Since then, Wilson has told Business in Vancouver that he has "given" shares to employees.
Charity has increasingly been a passion for Wilson, who owns about one-third of Lululemon and has a net worth of more than $2 billion.
Wilson told BIV in December that his imagine1day charity, which builds schools in northern Ethiopia, is expanding to other parts of the African country.
Chip Wilson, Kitsilano Chamber of Commerce, Julien Phipps
