Nike CEO Elliott Hill’s first year: Wall Street grades his comeback plan a B.

• Nike CEO Elliott Hill hit one year at the helm of the sportswear giant.
• Hill took the reins as sales declined and demand weakened in key markets.
• Here’s what analysts said about his first year at the helm.

Elliott Hill is one year into his marathon effort to get Nike back on track.

Hill rejoined Nike as CEO on October 14, 2024, after a decadeslong career at the sportswear giant. The former president of consumer and marketplace, who retired from Nike in 2020, returned to lead the company through declining sales, slowing growth, and heightened competition from smaller brands.

Nike shares jumped about 8% on the day Hill’s appointment was announced in September.

Hill seemed to start his term with a sprint. He called out the company’s missteps and unveiled his strategy to change things.

In March, Nike began its turnaround plan, which Hill calls its “win now” strategy. The effort has reoriented the company around sports from running to basketball, rather than gender or age.

Several analysts, including two who spoke to Business Insider, say it’s still early, but Hill’s plan shows signs of restoring Nike’s edge in running and retail. Some gave the brand’s comeback a B because it’s taking longer than they expected.

Here’s how Hill’s efforts have stacked up in his first year.

Hill faced an uphill battle when he started.

During the quarter before Hill started, Nike’s revenue fell 10% year over year to $11.6 billion, following flat growth in the 2024 fiscal year.

Hill quickly outlined areas where Nike needed to do better.

Nike had spent years trying to get customers to buy directly from its website and stores, which Hill said stunted its reach through wholesale channels. He planned to rebuild those relationships.

In recent years, Hill said Nike had become too reliant on retro styles like Nike Dunks and Air Force Ones. It lost market share in its core running business to smaller brands, like Hoka and On Running, Morningstar analyst David Swartz told Business Insider. Hill wanted to bring back Nike’s focus on sports, including running.

He also criticized Nike’s promotions, scaling back discounts through its direct channels and aiming for a more premium experience.

Hill’s turnaround plan hasn’t eased the pressure on Nike’s stock

Despite Hill’s vision, he hasn’t resurrected Nike’s stock price.

After the initial bump, the stock has struggled. It’s down about 19% from last year, compared with the S&P 500’s 13% rise over the same timeframe. The stock is also underperforming some of its peers, including Adidas, which is down about 15% year over year.

The market reaction suggests Wall Street isn’t seeing change fast enough. Sales were down 9% at $46.3 billion for the fiscal year 2025.

“The shares lack a catalyst to materially propel them higher until there is greater visibility on brand recovery and an operating margin inflection,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a September 30 note.

However, there are signs the company is moving in the right direction.

Nike vowed to refocus on sports with its ‘win now’ strategy

Nike’s “win now” strategy focuses on five key action areas: culture, product, marketing, marketplace, and its in-person presence.

The to-do list included improving its relationships with wholesale partners and promoting brand distinction through storytelling. Analysts told Business Insider they’ve been encouraged by those efforts in particular, which could help Nike climb back to the top of cultural relevancy.

Hill’s strategy also includes doubling down on sports, including running, basketball, football, training, and sportswear — to “put the athlete at the center of everything that we do,” Hill said in a March earnings call.

He said the company “realigned” roughly 8,000 employees around its core sports categories. He’s also reset his senior leadership team around Nike’s three brands: Nike, Jordan, and Converse.

The shift started with getting back to its running roots.

Nike said its efforts to get back to its running roots are paying off. Hill said the running category is a prime example of what he wants the rest of Nike to look like. Nike’s running business grew 20% last quarter.

“Our running team moved fastest into our new formation, and was the first to get sharper on the insights of their athletes,” Hill said on the most recent earnings call.

Nike’s plan for female athletes is coming into focus.

With a strategy that revolves around sports, the women’s game has become a focal point at Hill’s Nike.

In February, it released its first Super Bowl commercial in nearly 30 years, with a cast of star female athletes.

Nike has also expanded its relationship with the WNBA, as part of a 12-year merchandising deal with the league, the NBA, and the NBA G League. The company also released a collaboration with basketball star A’ja Wilson, which sold out online in under five minutes in May. And it signed a deal with Caitlin Clark, whose signature shoe is set to launch in 2026.

One of Nike’s bigger bets on women is the NikeSkims brand of performance wear, which was released in September. However, it faces stiff competition.

“NikeSkims has promise, but I don’t think it will challenge Lululemon in the short run,” Swartz at Morningstar said.

Hill had to mend relationships with wholesale partners.

Before Hill joined, Nike’s relationship with wholesalers, like Foot Locker and Dick’s Sporting Goods, had become strained after the company made efforts to bolster its direct-to-consumer channels.

“Nike cut off a bunch of retailers to try to drive traffic to its own apps and stores, but it discovered that it lost customers that it could not get back,” Swartz said to Business Insider.

Today, things are looking up for Nike’s wholesale partnerships. Its wholesale revenues were $6.8 billion in its first quarter of fiscal year 2026, up 7% from the year prior.

“Elliott is also striking wholesale deals left, right, and center to make Nike as accessible as possible,” EMARKETER analyst Rachel Wolff said.

Nike is back on Amazon, for example, and struck partnerships with smaller retailers like Urban Outfitters and Aritzia.

Nike’s digital and direct-to-consumer businesses have room for improvement.

Nike’s direct-to-consumer channels remain a key pressure point. Digital revenues fell 12% year-over-year last quarter, after a 26% drop in the 2025 fiscal year. Direct revenue fell 14% to $4.4 billion last fiscal year.

Part of the decline stems from Hill’s directive to pull back on promotions on the direct-to-consumer side of the business. Hill said in March that there were zero promotional days on Nike Digital in January and February for the North America region, compared to over 30 for the same period in 2024.

“We are working to find the right assortment and marketing mix to consistently bring consumers back to our digital ecosystem,” Hill said in a September earnings call.

Traffic to Nike’s stores is also down. As of June, Placer.ai reported that visits to Nike stores had been trending negative for eight months straight.

Nike is trying to revamp the store experience. At an experimental location in New York, for example, Hill said the layout has been overhauled around sports, with areas like a running zone.

“From a physical perspective, we’re feeling really good about the direction that we’re headed,” Hill told CNBC in early October.

Analysts give Hill a B grade.

In Wolff’s book, Hill gets a “B.” The EMARKETER analyst said Hill’s revitalization of Nike is going well, but there are “question marks” around its road to recovery. Chief among them are the impact of tariffs on Nike’s business and the potential for price hikes to backfire.

Nike said it’s working this year to mitigate $1.5 billion in expected tariff costs, which led the company to raise prices.

Swartz gave Hill an “incomplete” grade.

“I wouldn’t give him an ‘A’ because the turnaround is taking longer than expected,” he told Business Insider. “Nonetheless, I think the company is on the road to recovery.”

Nike reported first-quarter revenue of $11.7 billion, up 1% year over year and driven by success in North America, wholesale, and its running category.

In the long term, analysts seem optimistic about Nike’s comeback bid. Although it’s still early, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote that they expect it to “drive stronger results in product creation, brand marketing, and marketplace offense.”

The Goldman Sachs analysts outlined three key challenges ahead: the competitive sportswear market, Nike’s declining sales in China, and its struggling DTC business.

Still, Hill reminded investors during a September earnings call that it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

“We’re in the early stages, and our comeback will take time, and our progress won’t be linear,” Hill said.

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