What happened with Ty Haney and Outdoor Voices? Controversial exit revisited as apparel brand brings back co-founder

Outdoor Voices, the popular activewear brand is back in the news again this week, this time for reinstating its controversial founder, Ty Haney. This move comes just under two years after Haney publicly bashed the brand’s direction.

Launched in 2013 by Tyler Haney, then a 24-year-old, Outdoor Voices also known as OV, quickly became a cult brand for fitness individuals.

According to New York Times, the brand’s exuberant “Doing Things” ethos, which focused on fun, low stakes movement over hard core athletic performance, struck a chord with a generation worn down by the hypercompetitive strain of traditional sportswear.

ty haney back at outdoor voices we won https://t.co/8HTZ4YU1Uh

— jud (@judson) July 28, 2025

OV captured over $50 million in financing and opened several stores thanks to its Instagrammable pastel leggings and its community-based business model. But in the background, trouble was brewing. New York Times and BuzzFeed News reports in 2020 described mismanagement, internal chaos, and a toxic workplace culture.

Former employees described Ty Haney as a temperamental leader known to feud with seasoned executives, including retail titan Mickey Drexler (the former CEO of J.Crew and Gap), who had come aboard as chairman.

According to reports, by early 2020, Outdoor Voices was burning more than $2 million a month in cash, and Haney’s title of CEO had been stripped from her while she was on maternity leave. She remained a member of the board, but later resigned altogether, and the company was led by interim leadership.

A look into the aftermath and the comeback of Ty Haney

Outdoor Voices floundered after Haney left. Though the company was said to have finally turned a profit in 2021 under new management, long-time fans couldn’t ignore the brand’s new identity.

Haney herself responded to an OV Instagram in 2023. She wrote, "Yikes! Y'all have lost your way," and, in a later post, she wrote, "The future is not bright for the OG Exercise Dress."

Ty Haney, meanwhile, had moved on to new ventures, including Joggy, a plant-based energy drink, and TYB (Try Your Best), a blockchain-based loyalty platform (Business Insider). But she never quite cut her ties to Outdoor Voices.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Outdoor Voices (@outdoorvoices)

In June 2024, the private equity company Consortium Brand Partners (CBP) purchased Outdoor Voices with the intent to review the brand’s success. Therefore, this allowed Haney’s return, and the company posted a video on Instagram showing Haney gushing about her return to the company.

"I'm so excited to step back into this role as founder, as an owner, and as a partner, Over the last nine or so months, we’ve been working on the product — the uniform for doing things... I think you’re really going to like it." She said in the video.

The brand’s Instagram had been scrubbed clean, with only the recent video of Ty Haney’s statements signaling a fresh start for Outdoor Voices.