Target CEO Brian Cornell is stepping down

After 11 years, Target CEO Brian Cornell will step down from his role in Feb. 2026, the company announced this week.

Cornell has faced several challenges in recent months, not least of which stemmed in part from his decision to walk back Target’s DEI programming, HR Brew previously reported.

After at least 14 years of DEI commitments, Target did an about-face in January, ending its DEI goals, backing away from its employee resource groups (ERGs), and announcing it would no longer participate in external benchmarking. Target’s walkback was so stark that it erased from its website DEI-related pages, press releases, and impact reports.

Since then, more than 250,000 people have signed a pledge boycotting the retailer, which has seen a dramatic decrease in foot traffic, according to Retail Brew.

“When companies treat DEI as expendable, they’re not just rolling back commitments—they’re eroding trust with employees, customers, and investors,” Katica Roy, CEO of Pipeline equity, an HR analytics company, said on LinkedIn. “The lesson for other CEOs: Equity isn’t a ‘nice to have.’ It’s a core business strategy, and abandoning it carries real economic consequences.”

But correlation is not necessarily causation. Target’s glimmer was already tarnishing when it announced its DEI walkback. The company has struggled with declining or stagnant sales numbers for over two years, as consumers have pulled back on discretionary spending through inflation and economic uncertainty.

Cornell is being replaced by the company’s chief operating officer, Michael Fiddelke, who joined the company in 2003 as a finance intern and moved up, working across store operations, merchandising, and employee pay and benefits.