lululemon Appoints Chief AI & Technology Officer as Sales Growth Slows
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – September 5, 2025 – Lululemon Athletica Inc. is bolstering its technology capabilities with the appointment of ranju Das as its first chief AI and Technology Officer, effective September 2, the company announced August 26. The move comes as Lululemon navigates a slowdown in sales growth within its Americas market and seeks to accelerate product innovation and responsiveness to consumer demand.
Das will report to Lululemon CEO Calvin McDonald and join the senior leadership team.McDonald described the new role as representing “an elevated mandate to enable AI and technology to help expedite our product innovation process, improve our agility and speed to market, and increase personalization across our guest experiance.”
During the quarter ended August 3,Lululemon reported a 1% increase in overall comparable sales year-over-year. However, Americas comparable sales decreased 4% while international comparable sales increased 15%, according to an earnings release issued Tuesday, September 4.
McDonald attributed the decline in the Americas to allowing product life cycles to run too long, becoming predictable, and missing opportunities to create new trends, coinciding with an industry-wide decline in the premium athletic wear market in the U.S. ”Consumers are spending less on apparel spending less on performance activewear, and are being more selective in their purchases, seeking out truly new styles,” McDonald stated.
The company also experienced issues with its go-to-market process, failing to meet customer demand for new styles in some instances.
Lululemon plans to address these challenges by increasing the share of new styles in its overall assortment from 23% to 35% by next spring, while concurrently accelerating its design capabilities and go-to-market process.”I’m excited Ranju has joined us, and I look forward to partnering with him as he and our technology teams implement and accelerate these strategies,” McDonald said.