Can Katrina Lake save Stitch Fix? The founder of the nearly 13-year-old, subscription-based online personal shopping service is going to try, returning today to her role as CEO 17 months after stepping down from the position.
The bearer of bad news may have surprised some. Lake founded Stitch Fix in late 2010 and took the company public in 2017. At the time, she was the youngest woman to do so. But in August of 2021, she relinquished her day-to-day oversight of the company to become its executive chairperson, a role Lake said at the time she would use to focus on Stitch Fix’s sustainability efforts and its marketing. In her stead, Stitch Fix promoted to the role of CEO Elizabeth Spaulding, who joined the company as president in 2020 and worked previously as a partner at Bain & Company.
No word yet on Spaulding’s next moves, but Lake, who said today that Spaulding will be stepping down immediately, states in the company’s press release she is “grateful for Elizabeth’s many contributions as President and then as CEO, and am thankful for her leadership during what has been an unprecedented time for our business and the world.”
In her note to the company, Lake told employees that those impacted by today’s layoff will receive at least 12 weeks of pay, and more with tenure.
Stitch Fix’s stock is currently trading at roughly $4 per share. During its peak, in January 2021, shares were trading at more than $96 apiece.
According to a lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of California in 2012 by Flynn (and surfaced in that same WSJ article), the pair started the company, originally called Rack Habit, in October 2010; by 2012, according to the lawsuit, their relationship deteriorated after Lake allegedly asked Flynn to give up some of her ownership to distribute the shares to new hires.
Katrina Lake is back as interim CEO of struggling Stitch Fix, 17 months after stepping down by Connie Loizos originally published on TechCrunch
