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JULY/AUGUST 2021 BCBUSINESS 111 the board internally." (Although, he adds, they don't always elicit a response: "They won't even answer my questions at analyst meetings. I know too much about the com- pany.") Today, he sits on the board of Facio Therapies, a privately held pharmaceuti- cals company based in the Netherlands, as well as Amer Sports, the private com- pany behind Salomon, Arc'teryx and other brands, in which he's an investor. But his days of sitting on a public board are over. "Because of what's occurred with Lululemon, and my open fight with the board, I wouldn't even be consid- ered for another public board," Wil- son acknowledges. "In order to be an entrepreneur and build what I did, I have opinions about the future that are not acceptable in the realm of society at present. Because I look to see where society is going. And that makes people uncomfortable, and in this world of press and social media, I am a liability." Philippe (Phil) Arrata CEO, Mountain Equipment Co-op, 2019-20 Board director, MEC, 2015-18 CFO, Best Buy Canada, 2017-19 Phil Arrata came to Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) the way a lot of employees do: as a fan. "I have a passion for the product and the outdoors and sports," Arrata says. "The values of MEC really resonated with me, and I thought, I can add value." Arrata had been a senior VP with Best Buy Canada when he joined the MEC board in 2015. He soon discovered some of the unique limitations of co-operative boards— first among them that board members aren't picked for their expertise the way public directors are. While a nominations committee tries to match up candidates with missing skill sets—and recommend those candidates to the membership, in MEC's case—in the end, governance was in the hands of a select group of voters. " MEC typically would have 30,000 to 40,000 people voting for the board, out of 5.7 million members," Arrata says. Although he made it through for one three-year term, when it came time for a second, he didn't make the cut—despite being recommended again by the nominations committee. (This system similarly presents a challenge to diversity: while there were five women on the most recent board, notes Arrata, no racialized directors were elected.) A year after leaving the board, MEC approached Arrata (then Best Buy's CFO) about the CEO role—and on July 2, 2019, he returned to the co-op, this time as its top executive. His mandate was to turn around what had become a perennial money loser; MEC lost $11.5 million on $462 million in rev- enues in fiscal 2018-19. By the fall of 2020, Arrata had developed a turnaround plan, focused on factors such as better customer (or what MEC calls "member") satisfaction tracking and a streamlined merchandising management (cutting 50 percent of SKUs and 50 percent of vendors). Over the winter, things started looking better, says Arrata, with same-store sales trending upward. Then COVID hit, and revenue went off a cliff—down 50 percent initially, he says. The retailer also had its debt facility with Royal Bank of Canada set to expire in August 2020; when the bank didn't renew, the co-op filed for creditor protection on September 10. Five days later, MEC was bought by U.S. private equity firm Kingswood Capital Management for an undis- closed amount. Arrata stayed on through the transition period, leaving MEC (now officially known as Moun- tain Equipment Co.) at the end of December. Looking back, he says that while COVID presented once- in-a-lifetime challenges, some board decisions made it harder. As one example, he points to the reticence of directors to sell real estate in the fall of 2019, as part of his proposed turnaround efforts. "With a stronger bal- ance sheet," he notes, "we might have had a chance to survive as a co-op." Ultimately, Arrata says, co-op boards are limited both by who runs for a board like MEC's—and how much skin they have in the game. "MEC members were passionate, but the people who ran for the board were the people who put up their hands. So it was harder to say, We need somebody who has done retail restructuring. We need somebody who's done a financial turnaround." The new owners, he says, will have a clear focus on both the short and long- term success of MEC—and a hand-picked team of expert advisors to make it hap- pen. "They're expecting a return on their investment. When somebody became a member at MEC, and gave us $5, they just wanted to have a great experience." Andrea Wood Chief legal and governance officer, Telus Corp., 2018-present VP of legal, Telus, 2013-18 When the Black Lives Matter protests rose up across North America in June of 2020, companies struggled to figure out how to respond. Some "blacked out" their social media feeds in allyship and called it a day. "MEC members were passionate, but the people who ran for the board were the people who put up their hands. So it was harder to say, We need somebody who has done retail restructuring. We need somebody who's done a financial turnaround" –Phil Arrata UPHILL BATTLE Phil Arrata's tenure on MEC's board had its challenges