This is The Takeaway from today’s Morning Brief, which you can sign up to receive in your inbox every morning along with:
Just imagine this for a moment.
You are a public company executive who hustled for over 20 years to get ahead. Late nights. Excessive travel. Sitting at home, plotting out your next maneuver.
You finally get summoned into the boss’s office and handed the top job. It’s a special moment, but a fleeting one as you get into planning mode quickly.
You probably celebrate with your family that night. There’s a sense of accomplishment, mixed with a little fear of the unknown.
Then news of your appointment is made public. Your stock price tanks. Wall Street complains that someone else should’ve gotten the role.
I venture to guess this may be the week Target’s new CEO, Michael Fiddelke, is having.
The discounter announced that CEO Brian Cornell’s heavily groomed No. 2, Fiddelke, will take over as CEO on Feb. 1, 2026. Cornell, who’s been CEO since August 2014, will slide into the executive chair position for an undetermined period of time.
“The market had anticipated a CEO change, though we believe was hoping for an external CEO given the troubles Target has had driving sales and profits in recent yrs,” Citi analyst Paul Lejuez said.
I have no clue how Fiddelke’s feeling. But having gotten to know him the past few years, I’ll say he doesn’t deserve the guff Wall Street is giving him out of the gate. He’s worked his butt off, getting from Target intern to CEO in some 23 years. Along the way, he’s been CFO during a global pandemic and now COO during a global trade war.
You don’t get these jobs at critical moments if you suck as a manager, leader, and tactician.
But still, that 6.3% stock decline on the news of his appointment on Wednesday doesn’t sit well.
“I’ve had this conversation with the board for a number of years, and I’ve been in the role for 11 years. I’m going into my 12th now. I will actually turn 67 early next year, and I think it’s time for me to step back, recharge, spend a lot more time with my family, a lot fewer nights in hotels, and be a great supporter of Michael and the team for the rest of my life,” Cornell told me by video call while sitting next to Fiddelke at the company’s Minneapolis headquarters.
Fiddelke added, “I bleed Target red after 20 years here, and there’s nothing more important to me than working with the incredible team that we have to chart the next chapter for Target. I mean, I’ve seen us in that 20 years at our best. I’ve seen us not at our best. When we’re at our best, we are pretty darn tough to beat.”
