Elliott Hill loved Nike and left It. Now he’s back as CEO
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Nike’s incoming chief executive is known for welling up with tears when he speaks about the company because he cares so much about it. Elliott Hill started working at the sneaker giant in 1988 as an intern, taking calls from customers and moving boxes in a warehouse.
Over more than three decades, he climbed to be one of its top executives before he was passed over for CEO and retired in 2020. On Thursday, Nike announced that Hill was coming back, this time to take the helm of a struggling company. Its current chief, John Donahoe, is retiring after making strategic blunders that caused the company to lose ground to competitors.
The decision to change CEOs and bring Hill back was led by Nike’s 86-year-old co-founder, Phil Knight, who is chairman emeritus and the largest individual Nike shareholder, said a person familiar with the matter. Just a few months ago, Knight had expressed support for Donahoe. Starting in October, Hill’s job will be to undo recent mistakes and lead Nike’s turnaround.
He faces steep challenges: The industry is increasingly fragmented. Rivals like Hoka and On are taking market share from Nike’s core running category and its lifestyle offerings. Another hurdle will be managing key franchises like Air Jordan and Dunk, which Nike oversold in recent years.
Nike is cutting back on new releases under those models in an effort to engineer scarcity. Executives warned in June that the move would likely hurt the company’s sales growth rate. Another big task is rebuilding the company’s culture, which deteriorated over the past several years as restructurings and strategic missteps took a toll on employee morale.
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