Yoga Wars: What a Lululemon Challenger From Goldman Sachs Means for Retail
A Yogasmoga storefront in Greenwich, Conn.
Rishi Bali makes an unlikely yoga baron. No one would mistake him for a health nut. And until recently, Bali had no experience in marketing, retail, or apparel manufacturing. The warrior poses he was most familiar with were on the trading desks of Goldman Sachs, where he spent much of his career orchestrating interest-rate swaps and other complex financial instruments for big corporate clients.
But Bali, now 41, grew up in the birthplace of yoga, a slice of Northern India in the foothills of the Himalayas. And he loves the practice in a pure, ashram-in-the-1960s sense. When Bali talks about yoga, his eyes squint, his head tilts to the side, and he cracks a blissed-out grin that belies his career in the canyons of Wall Street. Bali also happens to be very good at business.