Who is Incoming Nike President and CEO Elliott Hill?
In This Article:
More from Footwear News
Nike has only had four chief executive offers. Elliott Hill will soon become the athletic giant’s fifth.
Hill, a company veteran of 32 years, was announced Thursday as the successor of John Donahoe, who has retired from his role as Nike Inc. president and chief executive officer. Hill will assume the role, effective Oct. 14, and will also become a director of the Nike Inc. board of directors and the executive committee.
Insiders believe Hill is the person Nike needs to lead the way.
“Elliott is absolutely the best choice for this position, and I’m so happy to see the brand make the right decision and put him in the job,” Matt Powell, advisor at Spurwink River and senior advisor at BCE Consulting, told FN. “He has all the qualities that are necessary to help the brand turn around. He has deep experience, both U.S. and global., he understands the culture, he knows of the retailers.”
In a note published Thursday, Williams Trading analyst Sam Poser agreed. “Today’s announcement that Elliott Hill, a [32]-year veteran of Nike who was retired in 2020, would return as President and CEO effective October 14th, and John Donahoe will be stepping down on October 13th is very positive, brings back needed institutional knowledge, and is a long time coming.”
Hill joined the company in 1988, according to his LinkedIn, and held several leadership positions over 32 years before retiring from Nike Inc. in 2020. Nike stated he was responsible for helping the business grow to more than $39 billion.
He last served as its president of consumer and marketplace. In the role, Nike stated Hill was responsible for leading all commercial and marketing operations for Nike and Jordan Brand, including the P&L across the company’s four geographies.
Powell said he was surprised in January 2020 when Nike gave control of the company to Donahoe with Mark Parker resigning instead of Hill. Now at the helm, the industry expert believes Hill has his work cut out for him, but will be able to right the ship.
“In the short term, I don’t see any immediate impact. In fact, I expect that they will come out and revise guidance down even further because the right things to do will require them to do less business in the short term,” Powell said. “For instance, they need to take Jordan 1 and Air Force 1 and Dunk out of the market for a period of time. They need to go dark on those programs in order to save them. That means they will do substantially less business. They need to be less promotional on Nike.com. That means they will do substantially less business in the short term. There’s more pain to come here, frankly, not because he’s not competent. Because doing the right thing will require more pain.”