Lululemon Product Chief Sun Choe Is Exiting for New Opportunity
Lululemon announced late on Tuesday a series of “updated and more integrated” organizational changes.
The moves come in conjunction with the departure of chief product officer Sun Choe, who has resigned and will leave the company this month to pursue another opportunity. The company said it does not intend to replace Choe’s role.
According to the Canadian active brand, these new organizational changes are intended to support the company’s near-and long-term growth plans, accelerate product innovation, and further enable its go-to-market strategies.
Effective immediately, Jonathan Cheung, global creative director, will report to chief executive officer Calvin McDonald and will be tasked with driving the product design and innovation roadmap, continuing to oversee design, innovation, and product development.
The company will also create a new team comprised of leaders from its merchandising and brand functions to scale its global and regional go-to-market strategies. Nikki Neuburger will become chief brand & product activation officer, overseeing merchandising, footwear, and product operations, in addition to her current responsibilities leading brand. Elizabeth Binder, chief merchandising officer, will report to Neuburger.
“We are grateful for Sun’s many contributions to the company over the past seven years, and she leaves us as a stronger, product-led organization with dynamic leaders ready to take us forward,” McDonald said.
“Looking ahead, I am confident in the strength of our design, merchandising, and brand teams, and excited by how the new structure will enable us to solve for the unmet needs of our guests in a more efficient, unique, and powerful way,” the CEO added.
While at Lululemon, Choe was instrumental in the company’s expansion into footwear. At the 2022 FN Achievement Awards, Choe and Neuburger accepted the Launch of the Year honor for Lululemon’s debut women’s shoe. During their acceptance speech, the duo explained how the four-year journey to launch shoes was driven by women from start to finish. “We not only design shoes for her,” Choe said at the time. “We design shoes with her.”
Choe was also front and center when Lululemon launched men’s footwear earlier this year. “For over 25 years, Lululemon has been designing feel first,” Choe said at the NYC event in February. “Our feel first innovation philosophy is our ‘north star’ that blends art and science to discover technical and functional solutions in order to take a broader and more sensory focused approach to product creation.”
“With new performance running shoes and our first-ever casual sneaker added to our lineup, we can now outfit both men and women in versatile gear from head to toe,” Choe added at the event. “Extensive research, wear-testing and ambassador feedback went into each of these designs to ensure a perfect fit, no matter the activity.”
In March, Lululemon said its fourth-quarter net income jumped more than fivefold to $669.5 million from $119.8 million a year earlier, when the bottom line was pulled down by $442.7 million in charges tied to the Mirror at home workout tech business.
Net sales in Q4 increased 16 percent to $3.2 billion — in line with analysts’ expectations, while net sales for the full year increased 19 percent to $9.6 billion.
But Lululemon sees that growth rate slowing and is projecting sales gains for 2024 of 11 percent to 12 percent. That puts the top line in a range of $10.7 billion to $10.8 billion, with the help of an extra week in the current fiscal year.
Lululemon will report its first quarter earnings results on June 5, following market close.