“What you don’t want … is a new CEO fighting the board. You want the board and the CEO to be aligned, so the CEO can focus her 2,500 hours a year on beating the competition and creating shareholder value,” Leblanc said.

At the same time, O’Neill will have to rebuild the company’s ranks and quickly inspire loyalty.

When Lululemon carried out a layoff last year that partially struck its headquarters, it sent unaffected staff fleeing to nearby rivals like Arc’teryx, said Laurent Vasilescu, senior analyst at BNP Paribas Equity Research, in a recent note to investors.

The last year of turmoil has only exacerbated that flow, he said.

In August, Lululemon lost its chief artificial intelligence and technology officer after less than a year and its longtime chief strategy officer after 14. Its chief communications officer was also scheduled to leave days before O’Neill took the helm.

Departures so close to a new CEO’s reign are “increasingly concerning,” Vasilescu said, while predicting “there may be more employee turnover over the coming months.”

Retail watchers say the transformation O’Neill will have to preside over should repair Lululemon’s executive ranks as much as its store shelves.

“Lululemon has lost its innovative edge. It has become boring and predictable, and it’s simply not justifying its price points in the way it once did,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said.

“The response to this so far has been to try and add more general casualwear pieces to the assortment. Unfortunately, this has confused some shoppers and has weakened Lululemon’s reputation for being on the cutting edge of athleisure.”

Lululemon needs to get back to convincing customers its products are worth the premium prices by launching merchandise that prioritizes fit and comfort, innovating with new fabrics and technology and injecting fashion into final designs, Saunders reasons.

An update to Lululemon stores also wouldn’t hurt. Some of its locations are looking “quite uninteresting,” he said.

If Lululemon refreshed its product offerings and stores, Saunders thinks it would help win back customers and get them to spend more.

That, in turn, would help with what he sees as the company’s biggest challenge: convincing critics Lululemon hasn’t hit its North American ceiling.

Analysts have worried Lululemon has saturated its home market as it can because recent quarters brought declines in its North American revenues.

Turning things around won’t be easy because the market is “way more competitive” and athleisure spending has slowed, Saunders said.

Yet he thinks O’Neill can more than handle these tasks.

While Lululemon’s stock dipped after her April appointment announcement, she’s no retail rookie. He credits her with transforming Nike’s women’s business from a sub-category into a multi-billion-dollar growth driver.

Lululemon said she was also instrumental in reducing Nike’s product development timelines, speeding up its release schedule and shaping the business into a US$45 billion global leader.

While many investors will want to see that same prowess at Lululemon, Leblanc thinks they won’t have much patience.

After all, they spent the winter and spring waiting for Lululemon to name its next CEO and then, the summer waiting for O’Neill to start while the clock ticked down on Wilson’s silence.

They’ll want her to quickly find her footing, deliver a turnaround plan and win their loyalty, he said, so “the pressure is on to get it right coming out of the gate.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2026.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press