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August 15, 2025
Should Target’s Next CEO Be an Internal or External Hire?
As Target CEO Brian Cornell nears retirement after an almost 11-year tenure, a survey from Mizuho Securities finds medium and large investors overwhelmingly prefer an external candidate as the chain’s next CEO.
“A way to promote wholesale change is to go with an external guy,” David Bellinger, a senior research analyst with Mizuho, told the Wall Street Journal, which reported on the survey.
The findings come as Target’s stock price has retreated close to levels when Cornell, 66, was first appointed CEO in 2014. The retailer has reported 10 straight quarters of flat or declining sales.
Target’s reputation has also taken a hit as the chain has become engulfed by culture war issues surrounding its corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and shifting support for LGBTQ+ communities.
Target’s New CEO, Whether an External or Internal Hire, Will Face Morale Challenges
The new CEO will also have to deal with internal morale issues. A Target survey of 260,000 staffers attained by the WSJ found 40% of those who replied said they didn’t have confidence in the company’s future. The scores declined from a year ago, and were lower for those working at Target’s Minneapolis headquarters.
The board has been running a CEO succession process and Michael Fiddelke, the current chief operating officer who has been with the company for more than two decades, is seen as the leading internal candidate. Earlier this year, he was put in charge of a “Enterprise Acceleration Office” that aims to drive speed and agility across operations.
Retail Analysts Weigh In on Target’s Future
Scott Benedict of Benedict Enterprises — a retail consultant, former buyer for Walmart and other retailers, and RetailWire BrainTrust panelist — believes Target would benefit from hiring someone who understands Target’s missteps.
He told Modern Retail, “If you can have an effort that’s led by someone who already knows the company, and then they create and round out a leadership team with new ideas and new voices and new perspectives from outside, that’s the perfect combination of things.”
Zhihan Ma, an analyst at Bernstein who recently reiterated his “underperform” rating on Target, believes new management with “an outside perspective could be a positive catalyst,” citing the success Best Buy saw after hiring Hubert Joly in 2012.
However, he said Target faces an “existential threat” from Walmart and Amazon, believing further investments in e-commerce supply chain capabilities “may not pay off if TGT doesn’t reach greater scale.”
Jerry Storch, vice chairman at Target in the ’90s and 2000s who now leads Storch Advisors, told Twin Cities Business that one of Target’s core problems is its limited-scale grocery sections fail to support a family’s weekly stock-up.
“The value proposition is out of whack,” added Storch. “If [the problem] started in grocery, it spread to everything, in the sense that Walmart is just less expensive, period. And the differentiation that Target applied has been copied by many other retailers, so Target is not as different as it used to be.”
In a LinkedIn column, Brittain Ladd — a supply chain consultant and former Amazon executive — said Fiddelke would be his choice if an internal candidate is chosen. However, Ladd listed Greg Hicks, Canadian Tire’s CEO; Richard Dickson, CEO of Gap Inc.; and Chris Nicholas, president and CEO of Sam’s Club, as his top three external candidates.
“A challenge facing Target is that it truly must undergo a transformation,” wrote Ladd. “This means replacing the majority of executives and hiring exceptionally talented executives to take their place. This requires a CEO who is skilled at stepping into a CEO role and making significant changes immediately and generating results.”
Discussion Questions
Do you think Target would be better off with an internal or external hire for its next CEO?
What skillsets or experience do you see as most important in a candidate given Target’s challenges?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Gary Sankary
Retail Industry Strategy, Esri
Paula Rosenblum
Co-founder, RSR Research
Neil Saunders
Managing Director, GlobalData
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Target requires a CEO who acknowledges the challenges it faces, communicates with honesty and transparency, respects and engages with team members, and avoids the arrogance of believing they have all the answers. A new leader must be willing to listen, learn, and then articulate a clear vision for addressing the issues and positioning Target to regain and grow market share.
Now, the question is whether someone internal or external is best place to fit these requirements. My view leans towards an external candidate as I think Target suffers from entrenched groupthink and an inward-looking mindset. However, the key thing is someone with the right personality and mix of skills.
With the slew of challenges it faces, Target would benefit from an experienced outside hire. New ‘best practices’ are needed, as the well-worn Target play book is no longer resonating with customers. Just as they turned to Brian C a decade ago, bringing in his experience from Sam’s Club and Pepsi, a new external veteran of the industry is who they need now.
External would be great, but there just aren’t a lot of people with experience running that kind of retail behemoth. Sometimes lightning strikes, and you get a Hubert Jolie. Sometimes the septic overflows and you get a Bob Nardelli. It’s a box of chocolates. I have no advice besides…don’t just pick someone because he or she is different than the last guy
Well said, Paula.
Wow! has any retail star fallen as far, or as fast, as Target? (Probably, but there’s no winning in this contest) As everyone else who comments here will write, above all else they need competence, and the ability to both articulate a clear vision, and carry it out. But that having been said, I have to wonder about how they got here in the first place: was the problem Cornell, or is it the people who hired him? If it’s the latter, perhaps it’s not the CEO they need to think most about replacing.
Target needs to have leadership that is focused on change at all levels, starting with the CEO. IMHO, the C-suite needs to be a part of the change initiation, as the new CEO starts and focuses on the process. This perspective requires people that are experienced in change management, which usually means turnover in leadership, and focusing on new, outside, managers, after the new ceo is hired. Change management, includes new perspectives, new implementations, and usually new technology throughout the organizations. Generally, employees with 20 years of corporate experience at the company will not be able to be an integral part of this new team.
Target needs a fresh start to get back to the place of love it once held with consumers. Maybe that’s an insider with great ideas who has been overlooked in the past, or perhaps it’s someone new who can move the company forward. Either way, Target’s perception – and reality – needs a shakeup.
Target’s current crisis has turned existential. The company has systematically abandoned what made “Tarzhay” a cultural phenomenon: democratizing design, celebrating inclusive values, and making affordable feel aspirational. When leadership experiments with an ultra-cheap imports model that contradicts the brand DNA, you’re witnessing strategic drift that insiders cannot credibly reverse.
An insider like Fiddelke is committed to decisions he helped architect. You can’t fix strategic amnesia with the same thinking that caused it. Target needs someone with the moral authority to declare “we lost our way” and the operational chops to rebuild from the brand outward.
The new leader must rebuild design partnerships that matter. Recommit to inclusive values as a competitive advantage, not a liability. Eliminate the Temu-wannabe experiment that dilutes brand equity. Stop ignoring store-level execution failures. Accept short-term margin pressure to rebuild long-term positioning. Strategic drift demands strategic courage; Insiders need not apply.
Target needs to interview internal and external candidates and have each one present a plan for now through the next ten years but it should be essential to first explore what drives the pessimism among employees.
Not to wax nostalgic, but Target’s path forward might just be buried in its own DNA. Clean, easy-to-shop stores. A unified digital experience. Upscale brands at great prices. Deep community roots. Ten years ago, Mr. Cornell was brought in after a brutal stretch—ecommerce missteps, the Canada debacle, and a headline-making data breach. He stabilized the ship and built a digital foundation that carried Target through the pandemic.
But now? The competition is out-Targeting Target. Better team treatment. More innovative food and apparel. And a refusal to get dragged into culture wars that alienate guests.
The next CEO should start by restoring Target’s brand promise—not reinventing it. Fix instocks. Recommit to community giving (they still do it, but quietly). Double down on categories where they win: apparel, HBA, private label food, and design partnerships. These are areas where guests still believe in Target.
So, internal or external? I lean internal. Not out of nostalgia (full disclosure I was there for 30 years), but because Target’s culture is nuanced. A generalist outsider will have difficulty, I believe. Target doesn’t need another turnaround specialist—they need a steward who knows what made Target great, and can build the next chapter from that foundation. I strongly believe that the Target team knows how to be successful. I would suggest that it is very evident in their morale issues. Internal or external, the next Target CEO would be very well served to listen to the internal team first. They know how to win.
I still see a lot of good to great infrastructure at Target. And I see plenty of missteps throughout the store that tells me there are plenty of planner, buyer, DMM, GMM, supply chian issues to be dealt with. As for the question of “should”…should the new CEO come from the ranks? Yes, they “should”…in a well managed succession/transition. And the current problems don’t mean that somebody in the C-suite hasn’t been wincing the whole time Target has been unraveling. They’ve witnessed the missteps, they’ve been muffled or stifled or outvoted along the way, and they know where to take corrective action. But…that might not be the realistic approach at this point. The optics, both internal and external, will probably demand a high profile external candidate for the job. And the board will have to be smart enough to finesse anyone in the C-suite in a position to be serious lieutenants in executing the required course corrections.
Gregg Steinhafel (a Target lifer) was followed by Brian Cornell (an outsider). For years, Cornell could do no wrong but now he’s in the penalty box, with internal morale reflective of the company’s problems.
The next leader of Target needs to decide what Target stands for, whether the candidate comes from inside or outside. Does it stick to its “Tarzhay” roots as an aspirational discounter, or does it compete more vigorously on price with Walmart? Its halfhearted commitment to food and commodities (compared to the footprint inside Walmart) makes it difficult to straddle both brand positions successfully.
The question of whether Target’s next CEO should come from inside or outside is really about the type of transformation the company needs. An internal leader understands Target’s culture and operations, but may struggle to drive bold change. An external hire brings fresh perspective and retail experience from other models, but risks a slower cultural fit.
Given the pressures from Walmart and Amazon, Target needs more than incremental adjustments. The next CEO must balance operational discipline with strategic reinvention, whether they come from within or outside the organization.