Nike Shares Benefit as John Donahoe Retires as CEO

It has been announced that John Donahoe, CEO of since January 2020, will be stepping down from his role on October 14 and Swoosh veteran Elliott Hill has been named his successor. This comes as no surprise to the sneaker industry, having been well aware of the the Swoosh has been buckling under – many of them coming from strategic decisions led from the top.

While Donahoe’s tenure is marred with criticism, he did witness some of Nike’s best years. When the former eBay CEO took the helm in 2020, he was battling the effects of the pandemic in full force, and the revenue growth reflected this with a 4 per cent decrease between 2019 and 2020. However, The Last Dance documentary detailing Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls’s star season in the 90s came out in April 2020, leading the way for what would be a $44-billion year in 2021. This was a whopping 19 per cent increase from 2020 – the biggest growth seen in the 2000s. Even though this slowed down in 2022 with a modest 4.9 per cent increase, 2023 saw the Swoosh crack a $50-billion year with nearly ten per cent in growth. The though, which saw criticism for Donahoe’s strategic moves hit an all-time high.

One of the key concerns that has plagued Donahoe’s tenure is the fact that he was not a Nike veteran or even a sportswear/sneaker veteran when he took the reins from . In what seems to be an attempt to placate these concerns and return Nike to their former victories, the next CEO has been revealed as Elliott Hill – a Swoosh employee of 32 years who was also a candidate for the position before Donahoe was appointed.

Hill started at Nike as an intern in 1998, working across 19 different roles before retiring in 2020 as president of consumer and marketplace. His LinkedIn profile reads: ‘In my previous role at NIKE as President – Consumer and Marketplace, I was running the largest brands in the sports industry and responsible for helping to grow NIKE, Inc. to $39 billion. I was also responsible for the NIKE business, which included the Jordan Brand and marketing operations and all four of Nike’s geographies.’ His appointment to CEO makes sense given this, as his background will lend itself well to repairing relationships with key distributors that were previously snubbed by Nike’s direct-to-consumer strategy that took effect during Donahoe’s tenure.

In an unexpected (but also not really) twist, instead of plummeting once the news of a leadership shift broke, Nike’s shares have increased by over 10 per cent since the market closed. They have settled since, now sitting at a 7.5 per cent increase since the announcement of John Donahoe’s departure.

For more on why Nike is struggling right now, head .