John Donahoe’s bumpy run as president and CEO of footwear and athletic apparel colossus Nike will reach its end on Oct. 13, with the company announcing Thursday that his retirement makes way for a familiar face.

Elliott Hill, who retired from the post of president of consumer and marketplace in 2020, will succeed Donahoe on Oct. 14, with the latter staying on as an advisor through Jan. 31 to help smooth the transition.

Hill joined Nike as an intern in 1988, working his way across 19 different roles in Europe and North America. He had been leading all commercial and marketing operations for Nike and Jordan Brand before his retirement.

When Donahue took the helm at Nike in January 2020, after nearly three years as president and CEO of cloud-based platform ServiceNow, one of his moves was emphasizing limited-edition sneakers, which caused the company to lose market share to competitors such as Adidas and New Balance, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.

But it was the philosophies Donahue brought from his seven-plus-year tenure as president and CEO of ecommerce giant eBay that ended up rocking the boat at Nike, according to previous ADWEEK reporting.

Nike cut partnerships with major retail outlets including DSW, Foot Locker, and Macy’s to focus on the brand’s own ecommerce channels. But as the pandemic-fueled boom in ecommerce began to fizzle out and customers returned to shopping in brick-and-mortar stores, the strategy proved unsound, per the Journal’s report.

Reshuffles in Nike’s marketing division

Former Nike marketers, as well as current and past agency partners, told ADWEEK’s Brittaney Kiefer and Rebecca Stewart in July that Nike invested heavily in performance marketing and programmatic ads to drive traffic to Nike.com and its apps in its attempt to have digital sales make up one-half of its 2022 revenue, at the expense of brand marketing.

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