- In today’s CEO Daily: Phil Wahba digs into two retail CEOs’ succession plans.
- The big story: Nvidia reports blockbuster earnings.
- The markets: Nvidia sparks a rally.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. This week, a pair of earnings reports—those of Walmart and Target—offer up a reminder of how tricky CEO succession planning can be. Both retailers’ CEOs—Walmart’s Doug McMillon and Target’s Brian Cornell—started in 2014 and are leaving in February, handing their companies off to lieutenants who are company lifers. But that’s where the succession similarities end.
Target and Walmart have long duked it out for the U.S.’s budget-conscious shopper, with Target skewing a bit more to discretionary “fun” items and Walmart to low-price staples. Though both chains thrived during the pandemic as people consolidated their shopping at fewer chains, Walmart pulled away from Target in 2022 and has never looked back.
Walmart has become a tech and e-commerce powerhouse capable of holding its own against Amazon and has positioned itself well for the AI era. Walmart shares have risen 300% under McMillon. In contrast, Target’s shares are only up 60% under Cornell, whose tenure was considered stellar before the retailer began struggling with merchandise misses, backlash to its diversity efforts, and then backlash for abandoning those efforts, complaints about customer service, and supply chain problems that led to empty shelves.
On Wednesday, Target reported that comparable sales were down 2.7% last quarter. Today, Wall Street analysts expect Walmart’s U.S. comparable sales to increase 3.8%.
Interestingly, one of the departing CEOs is leaving his company’s board in 2026, while the other is staying on as executive chair, meaning he will be even more powerful than he was as CEO.
You might think McMillon is the one sticking around to guide successor John Furner, who has an impressive track record as CEO of Walmart’s U.S. division. But no, Cornell is the one being elevated to a role with no defined term limit, overseeing his successor and current operations chief, Michael Fiddelke, even as both executives ultimately bear significant responsibility for Target’s current travails.
That a CEO like McMillon, whose leadership style will be taught in business schools, can step down without causing investor panic shows how well Walmart has managed its succession planning and developed a deep bench.
Target argues that Cornell and Fiddelke, well regarded executives to be fair, are insiders who can right the ship. However, Wall Street disagrees; it wanted an outsider to shake things up and has punished Target’s stock.—Phil Wahba
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
