Who is Heidi O'Neill? Inside the career behind Lululemon's big bet

Heidi O'Neill spent nearly three decades at Nike, helped grow its women’s business into a multibillion-dollar engine, and was pushed out when new CEO Elliott Hill reorganized the leadership team. She will become Lululemon’s CEO on September 8, inheriting weak North American sales and a founder, Chip Wilson, who has publicly said she is not the kind of transformative, creative-first leader he wanted.

“We’ll let the work answer”

In the second week of May, staff at Lululemon’s Vancouver headquarters watched a video message from a chief executive who did not yet work there. “Since the announcement, some people have been underestimating me. Some have been underestimating Lululemon,” Heidi O’Neill said, in remarks reported by Bloomberg. “That’s fine. We’ll let the work answer.”

An unusual first note for an incoming CEO, and an accurate reading of the room. When the Canadian athletic apparel company named her its next chief executive on April 22, 2026, the shares fell about 5 percent in after-hours trading, analysts called the choice a surprise and the founder said so on the record.

The girl who skied to school

O’Neill grew up in Charlevoix, a small town on Lake Michigan, where her parents ran a sporting goods store called Port Side Sports and she worked the back room, as she told Footwear News in 2022. When she was 12, her father set out to introduce cross-country skiing to the town, and taught her something about publicity on the way.

“He kicked me out the door and had me cross-country ski to school. Then he called the local newspaper and had them meet me on the way so he could get the cover story,” she told Footwear News. Ski clinics followed, which she likened to Nike Run Club: “My father had so much passion around sport and bringing it to the community, and I was part of that.”

She studied journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder, made vice president at the advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding, then moved to Levi Strauss & Co. as marketing director for Dockers — the last job before the one that defined her.

Twenty-six years inside the Swoosh

O’Neill joined the American sportswear company Nike in 1998 and stayed 26 years, running the global women’s and training business, leading North America apparel, then taking over Nike Direct, the stores, apps and e-commerce operation.

Her promotion to president of consumer and marketplace landed at the worst moment imaginable. “I started my official new role on March 11, two weeks earlier than I was supposed to start, as sport went dark, and the world went dark,” she told WWD of the March 2020 shutdown. “John called me and said, ‘OK, it’s game time.’”

The John in question, then-CEO John Donahoe, described her in coaching terms to Footwear News: “Heidi is one of the world’s truly great coaches, always inviting in diverse opinions and insights to get the most from her team.” She had staffed her women’s business almost entirely with women and considered that a weakness. “I thought we should have women focused on the NFL and we should have men focusing on women’s,” she said in 2019.

Her exit was not her idea. A transition letter dated May 1, 2025 and filed with the SEC records the elimination of her role, president of consumer, product and brand, under new CEO Elliott Hill, who split the remit three ways; Nike presented it as retirement. “For nearly three decades, Heidi has been a true champion for Nike, for sport and for athletes across the globe,” Hill said.

The candidate nobody predicted

Lululemon was meanwhile coming apart at the top. Calvin McDonald announced in December that he would leave after seven years, and two shareholders pushed from different directions: Elliott Investment Management, which built a stake reported above one billion dollars and championed former Ralph Lauren finance chief Jane Nielsen, and founder Chip Wilson, the largest individual shareholder, who launched a proxy contest.

The board chose neither camp’s candidate. “Heidi is the best, perfect, right next leader for this company,” executive chair Marti Morfitt told WWD, adding that O’Neill “basically was our bull’s-eye candidate” and that the hire was not an attempt to import Nike’s magic. O’Neill starts on September 8 on a base salary of 1.4 million dollars, per the 8-K.

The market was unconvinced. William Blair called her an “out-of-left-field” pick, Retail Dive reported, and Guggenheim’s Simeon Siegel wrote that “now comes the hard part”. Wilson was blunter, saying he hoped O’Neill was the right person for Lululemon but that a “near 30-year veteran” of Nike was “not the symbol of transformative, creative-first leadership” the moment called for.

Product first

Her stated plan is drawn from her own history: accelerate product breakthroughs, deepen cultural relevance, unlock growth outside North America. “Lululemon is an iconic brand with something rare: genuine guest love, a product ethos rooted in innovation, and a global platform still in the early stages of its potential,” she said on appointment. The company credits her with helping grow Nike from a nine-billion-dollar business to more than 45 billion dollars.

Supporters point to range rather than tenure. “Heidi is one of those rare people who can hold two things at once — real creative vision and the discipline to execute,” Spotify founder Daniel Ek said in a company statement. Critics see in the same CV the architect of Nike’s direct-to-consumer pivot, the strategy Hill has spent two years unwinding.

The numbers she inherits

First-quarter results for the period ended May 3, published on June 4, show why the board wanted a product operator. Revenue rose 4 percent to 2.5 billion dollars, but the Americas fell 3 percent while international grew 22 percent, operating income dropped 37 percent to 276.9 million dollars and gross margin contracted 410 basis points to 54.2 percent.

The company then cut full-year guidance to between 11 billion and 11.15 billion dollars in revenue, with interim co-CEO Meghan Frank blaming “spikes of negative commentary in the media and on social channels” and product launches that had not generated the anticipated guest response. Lululemon’s market value has fallen from roughly 64 billion dollars at the end of 2023 to about 19 billion in April 2025.

In the news

For most of her career, O’Neill was a trade-press figure. April changed that: Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal and Business of Fashion all covered the appointment, and the company has been unusually busy defending it, publishing a page titled “Why Heidi O’Neill is the right next CEO for Lululemon”.

The controversy attached to her is other people’s. The Wilson proxy fight ended on May 27: two of his nominees, former On co-CEO Marc Maurer and former ESPN marketing chief Laura Gentile, joined the board after the June 25 annual meeting, and Wilson agreed to roughly 18 months of standstill and non-disparagement. Separately, the Texas attorney general has opened an investigation into the company’s potential use of certain chemicals; Lululemon says its products are made without PFAS.

Michigan, Portland, Vancouver

O’Neill has spent decades in Beaverton and Portland, Oregon, sits on the boards of Spotify, Hyatt Hotels and Lithia & Driveway, and relocates to Vancouver for the job. Mentoring is the thread she returns to.

“Forty years in this industry taught me to recognize something rare when I see it,” O’Neill said in Lululemon’s own account of her hiring. Her description of the work itself is less polished, and more revealing.

“What I love most about leading a business is that the work that matters is built together. It’s messy. It’s collaborative. And it’s fun. And when the product is right, when the team is right — there is nothing better.” From September 8, the product and the team are hers.

This article was written with the assistance of AI.