Yen Chu has extensive brand and consumer-facing experience with Fortune 500 and private equity-backed global lifestyle brands in retail and apparel, health and wellness, entertainment and media, and technology. A highly regarded corporate governance leader, Ms. Chu is known as a trusted advisor to CEOs and Boards on fiduciary duties and requirements, investor/shareholder concerns, and ESG (environmental, social and governance) considerations. Ms. Chu’s track record of serving as a strategic advisor on organizational effectiveness and leadership transitions, launching new ventures and digital businesses, international expansion, and crisis and risk management spans over 25 years.
Ms. Chu is currently Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary of Tailored Brands, Inc., the holding company for retailers Men’s Wearhouse, Jos. A. Bank, Moores (Canada), and K&G Fashion Superstores. She joined Tailored Brands and its Executive Committee in late 2022.
Prior to Tailored Brands, Ms. Chu served as Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer of Equinox Group LLC, a global integrated fitness, wellness, and hospitality company with a portfolio of brands, including Equinox Fitness Clubs, Equinox Hotels, SoulCycle, Blink Fitness, Equinox Media, and PureYoga, for five years. As an executive on the leadership team, she had responsibility for the company’s strategic objectives while overseeing Equinox Group’s legal, ESG, government affairs, and community relations. During her tenure, she led innovation and growth by advising on the launch of the first Equinox Hotel, the Equinox+ digital app and Soul at home bike, and Equinox Explore/Retreats. She also led the proposal and bid for Wollman Park Partners (a joint venture with the Harris Blitzer Group, Related Co. and community partners such as the YMCA and Great Performances) to operate NYC’s Wollman Rink in Central Park. As a founding member of Equinox’s Equality + Belonging Leadership Council, she also served as the Council’s Executive Sponsor.
Prior to joining Equinox, Ms. Chu spent 11 years in various roles of leadership, advising the Board of Directors and executive team of Ralph Lauren Corporation, a fortune 500 global company specializing in apparel, home, and accessories. She worked closely with the Board and the executive team on public company SEC/NYSE governance, CEO succession planning, executive compensation, reorganizations, crisis management, and corporate social responsibility matters, including leading efforts to implement Ralph Lauren’s first CSR report. After obtaining the SEC and DOJ’s unprecedented non-prosecution agreements involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, she designed and monitored Ralph Lauren’s global regulatory compliance, anti-bribery, and ethics programs. In addition, she had global responsibilities where she led corporate transactions, including acquisitions of license businesses in Japan and Panama, and oversaw a portfolio of international licensing, trade/customs, sourcing, and supply chain arrangements. She also served as the legal advisor to the Ralph Lauren Corporate Foundation.
Ms. Chu began her legal career as a corporate attorney at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP where she spent almost a decade focused on corporate and capital markets transactions, representing a variety of private equity firms, financial institutions, and public as well as private companies in a variety of sectors including entertainment/media, reinsurance, and healthcare. She developed extensive capital markets experience, focusing on IPOs, acquisition financings, secondary offerings, and debt transactions, both investment grade and high yield.
A champion of diversity, equity and inclusion, Ms. Chu has been recognized for her thought leadership and dedication to advancing and empowering women, people of color, first generation students, and other underrepresented groups. Most recently, she has been the recipient of the Columbia Law Hong Yen Chang Award, the Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business Award, the Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY) Women’s Leadership Award, and the Women Influence & Power in Law (WIPL) Thought Leadership Award.
Ms. Chu is currently a member of the Board of Directors of DirectWomen (a national non-profit with a mission to increase the number of women lawyers on corporate boards). She served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Columbia Law School Association from 2013-2022.
She graduated from Columbia Law School where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law and was the national Justice Harry A. Blackmun Scholar. She earned her undergraduate degree, summa cum laude in International Relations, at the University of Minnesota.