Stephanie Linnartz received even less time than anticipated to repair Underneath Armour’s many issues.
Linnartz, a veteran government who was beforehand No. 2 at Marriott International, left the worldwide resort chain final 12 months to turn out to be CEO of Under Armour. She took over the struggling sportswear chain on Feb. 27, 2023—and, the corporate said today, she can be leaving the CEO function on the finish of this month, after simply over a 12 months on the job. She had said that her turnaround technique for the corporate would take three years to execute.
Kevin Plank, Underneath Armour’s controversial founder and controlling shareholder, will once more turn out to be its CEO, beginning April 1. The newest “boomerang” CEO to return to his former job (a bunch that features Disney’s Bob Iger and Howard Schultz of Starbucks) will turn out to be his firm’s fourth CEO in 4 years. He first “stepped back” from the job in January 2020 to turn out to be government chairman, and he continues to personal 65% of the corporate’s voting shares.
Underneath Armour didn’t give a cause for the abrupt CEO change, and a spokesperson declined to remark. In a LinkedIn post, Plank thanked Linnartz for her contributions in direction of Underneath Armour: “She helped advance the company forward in many important ways, including elevating our leadership talent in product, design, supply chain, consumer loyalty, and regional management,” he wrote. “Much work still needs to be done, but her leadership helped put us on the right track toward winning.”
Operating Underneath Armour was at all times going to be a turnaround job–which Linnartz went into with eyes extensive open. “I believe in taking calculated risks,” she informed me final summer season, after I profiled her for Fortune.
“She has hit the ground running, launching a clearly articulated three-year strategy that sets us up for strategic growth,” Plank informed Fortune, in an emailed remark, on the time. “I could not be more excited to have her at Under Armour and to work with her every day.”
However the challenges Linnartz confronted have been steep: Underneath Armour had struggled to develop income or income since its early heyday. Its share value has plummeted since its 2015 peak, and retail specialists name its model identification muddled, at greatest.
In the meantime, Plank’s politics and private life have continued to place his firm into sometimes-unflattering headlines. And Plank had remained an unavoidable presence on the firm effectively after his departure from the CEO function, as I noticed after I visited the corporate’s headquarters in August—the place I used to be regaled a number of occasions with the story of how Plank began the corporate in his grandmother’s basement in 1996:
“Buildings and apparel lines are numbered either 96 (for the year he founded Under Armour) or 37 (for the number of KP’s college football jersey),” I wrote then. “One corridor at headquarters is decorated with an enormous photo of that jersey, next to blown-up versions of Plank’s early Under Armour business cards, next to #inspo phrases like ‘HUMBLE & HUNGRY BEGINNINGS.’”
The seen ongoing presence of a charismatic founder generally is a drawback for a brand new CEO, says Neil Saunders, a GlobalData Retail analyst who covers Underneath Armour. “Despite the fact that someone else’s CEO, Kevin Plank is still there,” he says. “It is still a very founder-led company … and most CEOs don’t want backseat drivers.”
Whereas Linnartz had employed a number of new senior executives and launched a rewards program to extend buyer loyalty, her technique had not yielded quick outcomes: Underneath Armour’s most up-to-date quarterly revenues fell 6 percent from a 12 months earlier.
“She inherited a brand that always had a lot of problems,” says Saunders,. “And a year is really not enough time to make a change.”
Buyers at first cheered Plank’s return: The corporate’s shares rose in after-hours buying and selling, before sliding back down. Underneath Armour additionally introduced that, as Plank turns into CEO, Mohamed A. El-Erian, the previous PIMCO CEO, will turn out to be the non-executive chair of its board.
“As I look back at my past year at Under Armour, one of the things I am most proud of is the excellent talent we have brought into the organization,” Linnartz wrote in an email to Under Armour employees. She added that she needs Plank, “the executive leadership team and all of you much success in the years ahead.”
