Nike Stock Jumps Upwards As Nike Drops CEO John Donahue

John Donahoe’s time at Nike has come to end. Effective October 14th, 2024, long-time Nike veteran Elliott Hill will take over as Chief Executive Officer and President of NIKE, Inc.; Donahoe will remain as an advisor with the company through January 31st, 2025 to ensure a smooth transition.

John Donahoe was named as CEO of Nike in October of 2019. With a proven track record in digital commerce, technology, and global strategy (he served as Chairman of Paypal Holdings, Inc. as well as President and CEO of eBay, Inc. among other pivotal positions), Donahue was expected to take Nike to the next level as commerce continued its trend toward digital. He had large shoes to fill as his predecessor Mark Parker tripled the brand’s revenue during his incredible tenure that began in 2006.

Donahoe has largely been criticized for representing perhaps one of the worst eras in Nike history. While the brand saw short booms in revenue in the earlier phase of his role, much of that was attributed to the increased spending habits of consumers during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Things went sour as Nike focused too much on hitting numbers, quickly leading to consumer exhaustion. The brand’s desire to go direct-to-consumer was largely criticized by the sneaker community. While the move may have seemed logical simply on a numbers standpoint, cutting out retailers who helped build the brand’s popularity in inner cities and under-served communities was simply seen as a money-hungry play disguised as ethical business practices for the sake of reducing inventory.

Seeing repeated patterns in product and a lack of creativity from Nike designers/collaborators also led to the growing awareness of competitors, both large and small, such as running shoe brands On and HOKA. Nike’s biggest competitor adidas also benefitted from the Swoosh fatigue, leading to the growing trend of the Samba and the brand’s other low-profile, slimmer fitting archival models. All of these ingredients combined led to Nike stock plummeting as the brand outlook appeared murky at best.

Elliott Hill has worked for Nike for 32 years, holding a number of senior leadership positions across Europe and North America. Through his three-plus decades of experience, Hill’s huge advantage over Donahoe is that he knows not only the Nike brand culture, but has a far better understanding of the community that helped build the Swoosh into the biggest brand in the world. Hill retired from Nike in 2020, but is back to take on his biggest role yet.

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