Shannon Higginson is a seasoned executive in consumer-facing industries. She is General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and a member of the senior leadership team of lululemon athletica inc. [NASDAQ:LULU], a designer, distributor, and retailer of healthy lifestyle inspired athletic apparel and accessories. Lululemon has over 574 corporate owned stores and over 29,000 employees in 17 countries.
Shannon is a skilled public company executive officer with over 20 years of experience. Shannon is a leader in agility and resiliency work, collaborating with other executives to identify key risks to the business and create mitigation strategies, action plans and playbooks to enable continued growth in the face of global uncertainty. In addition, Shannon has expertise in crisis management, compliance, stakeholder engagement, global supply chain, international expansion, strategic planning, sustainability and transparency.
At lululemon, Shannon built the legal services function from the ground up, starting with a team of two and growing to a global team in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seattle, Vancouver and Toronto. During this time lululemon has grown from $1B to over $6B in revenues and expanded its store footprint from 5 countries to over 17 around the globe. Shannon reports to the Chief Executive Officer and is a member of the senior leadership team which sets the company’s strategic goals and priorities. Shannon currently leads the company’s Legal, Governance, and Compliance functions. She has also previously led the company’s Asset Protection (interim) and Sustainability Functions. Shannon’s calm, pragmatic, collaborative and confidence-inspiring approach has helped to lead the company through rapid international growth.
In addition to her role on the Executive Team, as General Counsel Shannon has had the opportunity to provide advice and strategic support to the Board of Directors on a broad variety of issues including, ESG, corporate governance, board self-evaluations, shareholder litigation, Integrity Line investigations, executive compensation and succession planning.
Shannon was recognized at the 2019 Western Canada General Counsel Awards with the Business Achievement Award (Awarded for demonstrating the ability to develop and implement strategy contributing to the success of the Company) and has been nominated for the 2021 Canadian General Counsel of the Year Award.
Shannon graduated from the University of British Columbia with a B.A. in History and earned her J.D. from the University of Victoria. She attended Stanford Directors’ College in 2019.