Brian Cornell will no longer be the CEO of Target. He has decided to step down as the company continues to see a decline in sales after its retreat on DEI.
CNN reports that Cornell’s departure was something expected to happen, and that the company should bring someone from the outside to lead it properly. However, they decided to hire from within and named Michael Fiddelke as Cornell’s replacement. He will be in his new position on February 1, 2026, and has been with the company for 20 years.
Cornell will remain with the company as executive chairman. He became the company’s CEO in 2014, where he oversaw a strategy to remodel stores as well as make the company’s online business better to compete with the likes of Amazon.
Since then, Target’s trajectory has gone downhill due to its own decisions. After announcing that it will no longer support DEI, the company has failed to maintain its customers’ loyalty, which has affected its sales.
It was reported on Wednesday that sales fell for the third-straight quarter, which is among the worst-performing companies in the S&P 500 this year. Many investors believe that because of the drop in stocks, the company needed to go into a new direction with a new CEO.
“This is an internal appointment that does not necessarily remedy the problems of entrenched groupthink and the inward-looking mindset that have plagued Target for years,” Neil Saunders, an analyst at GlobalData Retail, said. “Target, which used to be very attuned to consumer demand, has lost its grip on delivering for the American shopper.”
As mentioned earlier, we reported that Target decided to roll back on its DEI initiatives, which upset many of the company’s supporters, leading them to protest their decision. Anne and Lucy Dayton, the daughters of one of Target’s co-founders, called the company’s actions a betrayal. The company realizes that its actions are hurting sales.