Stephanie Linnartz got even less time than expected to solve Under Armour’s many problems.
Linnartz, a seasoned executive who was previously No. 2 at Marriott Internationalleft the global hotel chain last year to become CEO of Under protection. She took over the struggling sportswear chain on February 27, 2023 and the company said today, she will step down as CEO at the end of this month, after just over a year on the job. She had said that his company turnaround strategy would take three years to implement.
Kevin Plank, controversial founder and majority shareholder of Under Armour, will once again become CEO starting April 1. The latest “boomerang” CEO to return to his old role (a group that includes Disney’s Bob Iger and Starbucks’ Howard Schultz) will become the company’s fourth CEO in four years. He first “stepped back” left his position in January 2020 to become executive chairman, and he continues to own 65% of the company’s voting shares.
Under Armor did not give a reason for the abrupt change in CEO and a spokesperson declined to comment. In a LinkedIn Post, Plank thanked Linnartz for her contributions to Under Armour: “She has helped move the company forward in many important ways, including elevating our leadership talents in product, design, supply chain, loyalty of consumers and regional management,” he wrote. “There’s still a lot of work to do, but his leadership has helped put us on track to win.” »
Running under Under Armor was always going to be a turnaround job – something Linnartz took on with his eyes wide open. “I believe in taking calculated risks,” she told me last summer, when I profiled her For Fortune.
“She has taken over, launching a clearly articulated three-year strategy that prepares us for strategic growth,” Plank said. Fortune, in an emailed comment at the time. “I couldn’t be more excited to have her at Under Armor and to work with her every day.”
But the challenges Linnartz faced were daunting: Under Armor had struggled to grow revenue or profits since its inception. Its stock price has fallen since its 2015 peak, and retail experts call its brand identity confusing, at best.
Meanwhile, Plank’s politics and personal life continued to put his company in a sometimes unflattering situation. securities. And Plank had remained a fixture at the company long after his departure as CEO, as I found during my visit to the company’s headquarters in August, where I was repeatedly regaled with the he story of how Plank started the business in his grandmother’s basement. in 1996 :
“The buildings and clothing lines are numbered either 96 (for the year he founded Under Armour) or 37 (for KP’s college football jersey number),” I then writes. “A hallway in the headquarters is decorated with a huge photo of this jersey, next to enlarged versions of Plank’s early Under Armor business cards, next to #inspo phrases like ‘HUMBLE & HUNGRY BEGINNINGS’.”
Patrick T. Fallon—Bloomberg via Getty Images
The continued visible presence of a charismatic founder can be a problem for a new CEO, says Neil Saunders, a GlobalData Retail analyst who covers Under Armour. “Despite the fact that someone else’s CEO, Kevin Plank, is still there,” he says. “It’s still a founder-driven company…and most CEOs don’t want drivers in the back.”
Although Linnartz hired several new senior executives and launched a rewards program to increase customer loyalty, his strategy did not yield immediate results: Under Armour’s most recent quarterly earnings fell 6 percent a year 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.”
Investors initially cheered Plank’s return: the company’s shares rose after hours, before going down. Under Armor also announced that as Plank becomes CEO, Mohamed A. El-Erian, the former CEO of PIMCO, will become the non-executive chairman of its board.
“Looking back on my last year at Under Armor, one of the things I’m most proud of is the great talent we’ve brought into the organization,” Linnartz wrote in an email to Under Armor employees. She added that she wishes Plank, “the management team and all of you every success in the years to come.”