Target's COO will lead the struggling retailer when CEO Brian Cornell
steps down in February
[August 20, 2025] By
ANNE D'INNOCENZIO
NEW YORK (AP) — Target CEO Brian Cornell, who helped reenergize the
company but has struggled to turn around weak sales in a more
competitive retail landscape since the COVID pandemic, plans to step
down Feb. 1.
Minneapolis-based Target Corp. said Wednesday that Chief Operating
Officer Michael Fiddelke, a 20-year company veteran, will succeed
Cornell. Cornell will transition to be executive chair of the board.
Cornell, 66, took the helm at Target in August 2014. In September 2022,
the board extended his contract for three more years and eliminated a
policy requiring its chief executives to retire at age 65.
Cornell said the appointment followed several years of board vetting of
both internal and external candidates. Fiddelke has overhauled Target’s
supply network and expanded the company’s stores and digital services
while cutting costs.
“Mike was the right candidate to lead our business back to growth,”
Cornell told reporters. “As I arrived at Target, I consistently relied
on Michael’s strategic insights and sound judgment when making
decisions. Michael has developed a deeper knowledge of our business than
anyone I know.”
Fiddelke told reporters he’s stepping into the role with “urgency” to
reclaim the company’s merchandising authority.
“When we’re leading with swagger in our merchandising authority, when we
have swagger in our marketing, and we’re setting the trend for retail,
those are some of the moments I think that Target has been at its
highest in my 20 years,” he said.
In May, Target announced that Fiddelke would lead a new office focused
on faster decision-making to help accelerate sales growth.
The change in leadership was announced Wednesday at the same time that
Target reported another quarter of sluggish results. The company’s stock
was down more than 8% in pre-market trading.
Target reported a 21% drop in net income in the quarter ended Aug. 2.
Sales were down slightly and the company reported a 1.9% dip in
comparable sales — those from established physical stores and online
channels. Target has seen flat or declining comparable sales in eight
out of the past 10 quarters including the latest period.
Target, which has about 1,980 U.S. stores, has been the focus of
consumer boycotts since late January, when it joined rival Walmart and a
number of other prominent American brands in scaling back corporate
diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Target’s sales also have languished as customers defect to Walmart and
off-price department store chains like TJ Maxx in search of lower
prices. But many analysts think Target is stumbling because consumers no
longer consider it the place to go for affordable but stylish products,
a niche that long ago earned the retailer the jokingly posh nickname “Tarzhay.”
In fact, out of 35 merchandise categories that Target tracks, it gained
or maintaining market share in only 14 during the latest quarter,
Fiddelke told reporters Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Walmart gained market share among households with incomes
over $100,000 as U.S. inflation caused consumer prices to rise rapidly.
Lower-income shoppers have driven customer growth at Target, suggesting
it may have lost appeal with wealthier customers, according to market
research firm Consumer Edge.
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 “It’s probably not the best sign,
especially because higher-income consumers continue to hold up a
little bit better” during times of economic uncertainty, said
Consumer Edge Head of Insights Michael Gunther.
In March, members of Target’s executive team told investors they
planned to regain the chain’s reputation for selling stylish goods
at budget prices by expanding Target’s lineup of store label brands
and shortening the time it took to get new items from the idea stage
to store shelves. The moves would help the company stay close to
trends, executives said.
“In a world where we operate today, our guests are looking for
Tarzhay,” Cornell told investors. “Consumers coined that term
decades ago to define how we elevate the everything everyday to
something special, how we had unexpected fun in the shopping that
would be otherwise routine.”
Before joining Target, Cornell spent more than 30 years in
leadership positions at retail and consumer-product companies,
including as chief marketing officer at Safeway Inc. and CEO at
Michaels, Walmart’s Sam’s Club and PepsiCo America Foods. He came to
Target when the company was facing a different set of challenges.
Cornell replaced former CEO Gregg Steinhafel, who stepped down
nearly five months after Target disclosed a huge data breach in
which hackers stole millions of customers’ credit- and debit-card
records. The theft badly damaged the chain’s reputation and profits.
Cornell reenergized sales by having his team rev up Target’s store
brands. It now has 40 private label brands in its portfolio. And
even before the pandemic, Cornell spearheaded the company’s mission
to transform its stores into delivery hubs to cut down on costs and
speed up deliveries.
Target’s 2017 acquisition of Shipt helped bolster the discounter’s
same-day, store-based fulfillment services. Cornell also focused on
making its stores better tailored to the local community
The coronavirus pandemic delivered outsized sales for Target as well
as its peers as people stayed home and bought pajamas, furnishings
and kitchen items. And it continued to see a surge in sales as
shoppers emerged from their homes and went to stores. But the
spending sprees eventually subsided.
As inflation started to spike, Target reported a 52% drop in profits
during its 2022 first quarter compared with a year earlier.
Purchases of big TVs and appliances that Americans loaded up on
during the pandemic faded, leaving the retailer with excess
inventory that had to be sold off.
In July 2023, as shoppers feeling pinched by inflation curtailed
their spending, Target said its comparable sales declined for the
first time in six years.
Moreover, Target started losing its edge as an authority on style by
focusing too much on home furnishings basics, and not enough trendy
items, Fiddelke said.
A customer backlash over the annual line of LGBTQ+ Pride merchandise
Target stores carried that year further cut into sales.
Although Walmart retreated from its diversity initiatives first,
Target has been the focus of more concerted consumer boycotts.
Organizers have said they viewed Target’s action as a greater
betrayal because the company previously had held itself out as a
champion of inclusion.
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