Kevin Plank broke Under Armour. Can he fix it?

livemint.com:

When Kevin Plank took back the CEO job this year at Under Armour, he said the sportswear brand he founded had suffered from executive turnover and strategy shifts. “My top priority is to bring clarity and stability to our business," he told investors in May, when Plank also warned them that the company’s sales would drop at least 10% this year. The 52-year-old billionaire had never left the company he started nearly 30 years ago.

After stepping aside as CEO in late 2019, he stayed on as executive chairman and brand chief. And he remained the controlling shareholder, thanks to supervoting shares. More than half a dozen former executives said Plank was responsible for much of the turmoil and complexity that he is now promising to clean up.

In recent years, they say he foiled marketing plans put in place by others, he pushed product ideas that flopped and blurred the lines between his brand role and that of the CEOs that succeeded him. Much like Bob Iger at Disney and Howard Schultz at Starbucks who were reinstated as CEO, Plank and the Under Armour board have decided that the business he long ran needs a rescue and he is the best person to pull it off. “Under Armour continues to address what has distracted us from our core mission," a company spokesman said.

“Under Kevin’s leadership, we are determined to change the trajectory of this business." Under Armour said Plank and the board supported the CEOs who were selected to succeed him and they had the opportunity to do so how they saw fit. Plank “continued to have a founder’s opinion on the business he built, particularly in the areas of brand marketing, product, and innovation," the spokesman said. Plank is betting that the company can become a premium sports brand by