This edition of the newsletter comes from pulling on a thread and watching the spool unravel.

Last week we looked at a new role at Lululemon focused on raw material operations. I got curious about the bigger picture. Why create a role like this, and what larger objectives is the brand chasing?

While I was thinking about that, another Lulu posting landed in my inbox: a Senior Manager for Go To Market Evolution.

So I started digging into hiring trends over the past ~18 months.

To me, it’s clear there’s a meaningful organizational shift underway.

But unlike a big executive hire or flashy new C-suite title, these moves aren’t going to make headlines in WWD or the WSJ.

I should preface this with the fact that I am using multiple job postings and publicly facing, company statements to “read the tea leaves” so to speak.

It appears a Go To Market Evolution Team (GTMET) has either been built from scratch or spun out of their “Enterprise Business Transformation” function.

My hunch is it was formalized around Oct 2025, when Madeline Millsip became Director of GTM Evolution after serving as Senior Manager of Enterprise Transformation (confirmed by her LinkedIn profile). There are also another four open GTMET roles, including Senior Manager and Analyst positions.

So what does this team actually do?

It acts as an internal consultancy, focused on problem framing, process design, workshop facilitation, KPIs, and cross-functional governance. It’s explicitly value-chain driven, touching raw materials, supply chain, merch, planning, and beyond.

While this is a smart move, the internal consultancy concept is a bit puzzling. You’d hope for some outside perspective, not just recirculation of the “stale air” of institutional knowledge and internal biases.

Remember, it wasn’t long ago that Lulu’s CEO admitted the brand had gone stale and predictable, while upstarts like Vuori and Alo gained momentum.

From our perspective, investing in these kinds of roles and functions is exactly the right move and not just chasing the next franchise or blockbuster product.

Why? Because process innovation is the most underrated opportunity in the softlines supply chain today.

If we start to see real momentum from the brand, I’ll happily plant my flag and say that success is rooted in these process efforts.

But there’s always a gap between strategy and execution. Retail executives constantly worry about the disconnect between corporate strategy and in-store execution. That disconnection can always be spotted it in the final assortment.

So we’ll see if this pays off. Job postings and corporate statements are usually written more romantically than a Harlequin novel and paint an idealized picture of what each role will do.

Ideally, this work helps close the gap between merchandising and marketing and educates product teams on the upstream impacts of their decisions.

Meanwhile, Chip Wilson still casts a long shadow over the brand. Hard to believe he isn’t angling to “nudge” Calvin McDonald aside and take the reins again.