Name Christine Day | Role Executive | |
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Christine M. Day (born 1962) is a Canadian retail executive. From 2008 through December 2013, she was the CEO of the Canadian clothing company Lululemon Athletica. Prior to taking up her post at Lululemon she had worked for Starbucks for twenty years, eventually becoming the head of its Asia-Pacific division. She has been the CEO of the Vancouver-based food company Luvo since January 2014.
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Early life and education
Day was born in Northern Ireland. When her father's career as a professional soccer player was ended by a knee injury, the family emigrated to Canada and settled in British Columbia where he worked as an engineer. She received her undergraduate degree in Administrative Business Management from Central Washington University in 1984.
Career
Day began her career working for a financial services firm specializing in private equity placements. One of its clients was Howard Schultz who owned the Il Giornale coffee outlet and was looking to expand the company by purchasing Starbucks. Day began working as the office manager for Schultz's then fledgling company in 1986 and remained with Starbucks for the next 20 years, gradually rising through its ranks. In 2002 she graduated from Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program and by 2003 had become the head of Starbuck's Asia-Pacific division.
She left Starbucks in 2006 and took a year's sabbatical before joining Lululemon Athletica as executive vice-president of its retail operations in January 2008. Six months later, she became the company's CEO and joined its Board of directors. During her time at Lululemon, Day was credited with driving its expansion to an international company, with Lululemon's stock rising by over 400% during her tenure. In 2011, she became the first woman to be named "CEO of the Year" by the Toronto Globe and Mail and was named "Marketer of the Year" by the Canadian Marketing Association. Day announced that she would be resigning as CEO of the company in June 2013, but would stay on for the next six months until her replacement was found. In January 2014 Laurent Potdevin was named the new CEO of Lululemon.
Day became the new CEO of Luvo Inc., a startup food and catering company that sells healthy frozen foods. It's based in Vancouver with most of its operations in Atlanta, Georgia. She owns 15% of Luvo and is the company's second largest shareholder, after its founder Steve Sidwell. After leaving Lululemon, Day planned to take time off. But she was drawn to Luvo’s mission of putting nutrition back into frozen foods and saw it as an opportunity for marketplace disruption.
She began honing her investment strategy early on in her career while working for the private-equity corporation Integrated Resources, where she saw how money invested in early stage companies grew exponentially. During her tenure at Starbucks and Lululemon, Day was able to gather wealth through stock options with these growth companies.
Day is currently a partner in the Vancouver-based venture capital firm Campfire Capital.
Personal life
Day is married with two sons and a daughter. Her husband Pat held a senior post at Boeing for twenty years but retired from the company after the birth of their youngest child.