Celebrating Women on IWD 2023 Through New Initiative at lululemon

International Women’s Day (IWD) is commemorated annually to celebrate women and girls and our invaluable contributions to our world. It also marks an important call to action in the continuation of advancing equity for all women.

This IWD, lululemon has much to celebrate. We are proud of the advancements made regarding gender equity. Roughly 75% of our workforce identify as women, and 70% of our senior leadership and people managers identify as women. In addition, over half of our Board of Directors identify as women. And we have achieved gender pay equity globally for six consecutive years in a row.

We also stand in solidarity with and celebrate the achievements of several of our senior leaders who are trailblazers and change makers in their own rights:

• Celeste Burgoyne, President, Americas and Global Guest Innovation, was recognized as one of the Most Influential Women Executives in Corporate America by Women Inc. in 2022
• Sun Choe, Chief Product Officer, was named one of WWD x FN x Beauty Inc’s 50 Women in Power in 2022
• Julie Averill, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, was named by Retail Today as one of the 50 Outstanding Women in Retail in Women We Admires’ Top 50 Women Leaders for Washington in 2022
• Nikki Neuburger, Chief Brand Officer, was named to Brand Innovator’s Top 100 Women in Brand Marketing list in 2022
• Meghan Frank, Chief Financial Officer, was ranked as the number one CFO on Institutional Investor's 2022 list of top Canadian Executive Teams
• Susan Gelinas, Senior Vice President, People and Culture, was recognized as one of Human Resources Director’s Global 100, on their HR 2022 List
•  Shannon Higginson, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, was named as one of Business in Vancouver’s 500 most influential business leaders in British Columbia in 2022

Consistent with the purpose of IWD, to empower all women, we believe it is our collective responsibility to keep advancing equity and driving change, especially for those who have been marginalized the most.

Those who exist at the intersection of multiple types of marginalization face complex and nuanced challenges that have historically gone unaddressed, particularly for racialized women. For BIWOC (Black, Indigenous, Women of Color) there is double jeopardy at play as we experience both gender and racial bias. As a result of these systemic issues, BIWOC leaders face what is referred to as a “concrete ceiling”, a phenomenon where barriers are increasingly hard to break, and the risk of failure is high.

In response, lululemon curated an initiative through a lens of intersectionality to remove barriers, enable success, and celebrate all people who identify as women, with an emphasis on those who identify as women from diverse racial and ethnic groups, while actively leaning into our core value of connection through coalition building and allyship training. The initiative is Women Of.

Through this initiative, we will offer coaching, mentorship, and a curated personal and professional development series to women leaders that is designed to cultivate community, expand networking opportunities, empower storytelling, visioning, healing, and goal setting. Women Of will also engage allies across lululemon who directly support and surround women leaders. The curated portion of the initiative will begin as a six-month program for North America and EMEA and roll out to additional regions in late 2023 and 2024.

At lululemon, we believe that when we focus on the needs of the most marginalized, the rising tide will “lift all boats”.

Please check out some of our leaders talking about our new initiative, Women Of, in the above video link.

Stacia Marie Jones, Esq., Vice President, Global Head of IDEA, lululemon