Nike 's journey since the end of the pandemic has been anything but easy. Since then, the company has seen its shares plummet on the New York Stock Exchange due to obstacles such as slowing sales and a loss of momentum in one of the areas that made the brand famous: innovation.
The constant changes in the upper echelons of this area are one of the signs of this crisis. And on Friday, April 10th, a new handover only reinforced that the American company is, in fact, not doing well.
In an internal memo obtained by The Wall Street Journal , Nike announced that Tony Bignell is no longer the company's chief innovation officer. According to the company, the executive is leaving the position to pursue his own creative and philanthropic interests.
He will be replaced by Andy Caine, vice president and director of sportswear at the company. The executive will report to Phil McCartney, who was chosen to assume the position of chief innovation, design and product officer, created last year.
It was also in June 2025 that Bignell was appointed as Nike's chief innovation officer. The choice was made by CEO Elliott Hill , a Nike veteran who had retired in 2020 and returned to the group in October 2024 with the mission of restructuring the operation.
Now, with Bignell's departure just ten months after taking the position, Caine will be the third executive to hold that role in less than three years. Before the pair, John Hoke III held the position for just over a year.
“His influence is present in ideas and products that have propelled the sport forward and broadened what athletes can expect from Nike,” McCartney said of Bignell in the memo sent to the company’s team.
Like Hill, Bignell had an extensive record of service to Nike. He had been with the company for 30 years and led the development of some of the brand's most innovative running shoes.
One of the most recent examples, already as chief innovation officer, was the Vomero Premium. The shoe was launched in October 2025, after an eight-month effort – half the time usually invested in a project of this size.
Despite this above-average pace, the fact is that Nike continues to face the challenge of accelerating product development cycles. Speeding up innovation has been one of Hill's focuses in an attempt to get the company's sales back on track.
Even with the renewal of its portfolio, the company has been losing ground to emerging rival brands like On and Hoka in recent years, as it remained heavily dependent on the Air Jordan franchise and other classics.
This slowdown has been more pronounced in countries like China, Nike's second-largest market, where the brand's sales have been declining for seven consecutive quarters and local competitors typically launch products in half the time it takes the company.
Last week, when releasing its fiscal third-quarter results, which ended on February 28, Nike provided the latest picture of this race. Despite higher-than-expected earnings per share, net income fell 35% compared to the same period a year earlier, to US$520 million.
Revenue for the quarter remained at the same level as the previous fiscal year, at US$11.2 billion. However, what caught the market's attention was the forecast of lower revenue for the year, in addition to the warning that sales in China could fall by up to 20% in the fourth fiscal quarter.
As a result, Nike's shares plummeted more than 15% after the earnings release, reaching their lowest level in over a decade. Today, the shares closed trading in New York down 3.14%, valuing the company at US$63.1 billion. Year-to-date, the accumulated devaluation is 33%.
