CEO of Lululemon Calvin McDonald: From Grocery Clerk to $25 Million Net Worth

Not every CEO has a straight-line story. Calvin McDonald, who ran lululemon from 2018 until late 2025, is a good example of what happens when someone stumbles into an industry, decides to take it seriously, and just never stops. He did not grow up dreaming about activewear or athleisure. He wanted to catch criminals. But life had a different plan, and it turned out to be a pretty good one — a career spanning three decades, a net worth of around $25 million, and a company he helped grow from $3.28 billion to nearly $10 billion in annual revenue.

Who Is the CEO of Lululemon: The Grocery Clerk Who Almost Became a Detective

Calvin McDonald grew up in London, Ontario — a regular Canadian city, not the kind of place where future retail legends are typically born. At 19, he had a very clear goal: become a homicide detective. He applied to the RCMP and the Ontario Provincial Police, and both turned him down. The reason was almost funny in hindsight — they told him he had always lived at home and needed to prove he could handle life on his own first.

So he went and got a job. As a grocery clerk at Loblaws, Canada's largest retail chain. He took the position with every intention of reapplying to the police within a year. That year came and went. And then another. And another. Somewhere along the way, he stopped thinking about detective work entirely — because he realized he was actually good at this retail thing, and more importantly, he genuinely liked it.

What started as a placeholder job turned into a 17-year run at Loblaw Companies Limited. He worked his way through the ranks, earned a B.S. from the University of Western Ontario, then went back for an MBA at the University of Toronto — all while climbing inside one of Canada's biggest corporations. By the time he left Loblaw, he was Executive Vice President of the Conventional Division, managing a budget of roughly $200 million and leading a team of more than 400 people.

Building a Career: Sears Canada, Sephora, and the Road to Lululemon

After nearly two decades at Loblaw, McDonald made his first real jump to a CEO seat. He became President and CEO of Sears Canada in 2011 — a tough assignment, since the retailer was already struggling to compete in a market being reshaped by e-commerce. He did not try to pretend things were fine. One of his most notable moves was selling prime store leases for $170 million — a bold, slightly uncomfortable call that freed up capital at a time when the company needed flexibility more than floor space.

In 2013, he got a call that most retail executives would drop everything for: the top job at Sephora Americas, the North American arm of LVMH's cosmetics empire. He took it. Over the next five years, McDonald delivered five consecutive years of double-digit growth. He launched new digital platforms, pushed the brand into Brazil and Mexico, and — somewhat unexpectedly — turned haircare into Sephora's fastest-growing category. By the time he left in 2018, he had built a genuine reputation as someone who could walk into a big brand and make it meaningfully bigger.

"I love matching creativity with problem-solving to come up with interesting solutions." — Calvin McDonald

CEO of Lululemon: The $10.6 Billion Chapter

In August 2018, lululemon appointed Calvin McDonald as its new CEO. The brand was already doing well, but it was in the middle of a leadership transition and needed someone who could take it to the next level internationally. McDonald fit the brief.

Within his first year, he laid out an ambitious five-year plan: double men's and e-commerce revenues, quadruple international sales. Most companies announce targets like that and quietly revise them down two years later. Lululemon hit them early. By 2022, the company had already achieved what McDonald had set out to do, so they reset the targets again — this time aiming for $12.5 billion in total revenue by 2026.

Under his leadership, lululemon's annual revenue grew from $3.28 billion in fiscal 2019 to $9.61 billion in 2024. That is nearly a tripling of the business in six years. Net revenue grew at a 19% compound annual growth rate from 2021 to 2024. Operating income hit $2.5 billion in 2024, up 17% year-over-year. Gross margin sat at 59.2% — exceptional numbers for any consumer brand, let alone one selling yoga pants and running gear.

For his work in 2024, McDonald took home a total compensation package of $14.6 million — a base salary of $1.3 million, incentive pay of $2.2 million, and stock and option awards worth $11 million. In 2023, the package had been even higher at $16.5 million. At his peak, he was one of the highest-paid executives in the entire retail and fashion industry globally.

Calvin McDonald's Net Worth and Life After Lululemon

By late 2025, Calvin McDonald's estimated net worth had reached around $25 million. The bulk of it came from his lululemon stock — at one point, he held over 110,564 shares of LULU worth approximately $22 million. He also sat on the Board of Directors of The Walt Disney Company, where he owned about 22,313 shares worth roughly $2 million.

In December 2025, McDonald stepped down as CEO of lululemon. The company had run into a rough patch: slowing North American sales, macroeconomic headwinds, the impact of U.S. tariffs, and growing competition from brands eating into lululemon's core customer base. The share price had been cut roughly in half over the course of the year. Lululemon founder Chip Wilson — who remained a major shareholder — had taken out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal criticizing the company's direction and calling for new leadership.

McDonald did not stay on the sidelines for long. In February 2026, he was announced as the new CEO of The Wella Company, a global hair and beauty brand backed by private equity firm KKR. A new chapter, a familiar playbook.

Key Ideas from the CEO of Lululemon on How to Build a Successful Career

Calvin McDonald never gave a TED Talk about success. But if you follow the arc of his career, the lessons are right there:

• Start where you are. He began as a grocery clerk with no plans to stay in retail. He did not wait for a perfect opportunity — he took what was available and committed to being good at it.
• Stay somewhere long enough to actually learn it. Seventeen years at one company gave McDonald a depth of understanding that no MBA program can fully replicate. He knew the business from the inside out before he ever ran one.
• Make the hard call early. Selling $170 million in Sears leases was not a popular move. But avoiding painful decisions only delays them and makes them more expensive.
• Set targets that feel slightly unreasonable. McDonald's first-year plan at lululemon seemed ambitious at the time. The company hit those goals ahead of schedule. Audacious targets create alignment and urgency.
• Compete with yourself. He ran marathons and competed in Ironman triathlons in his personal life. "I'm a little competitive by nature," he once said. That mindset translated directly into how he led organizations.
• The brand is the business. At lululemon, McDonald understood that the product alone was not enough — the community, the story, and the cultural positioning were just as important as the leggings themselves.

Calvin McDonald's $25 million net worth did not appear overnight. It was built over 30 years of showing up, performing, and moving forward — from a supermarket floor in Ontario to the top of one of the most recognized activewear brands on the planet. The grocery clerk who almost became a detective ended up building something much bigger.