Worst CEOs of the Year: Brian Cornell of Target

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This is the next in our series on the worst CEOs in America. There will be an all-time winner later in the year. These chief executives were picked based on their major strategy stumbles, as well as how decisions they made affected shareholders, customers, and employees. Some of these CEOs are fairly new to the public corporations they run. Others have had their jobs for years.

24/7 Wall St. Key Points

• Target Corp.’s (NYSE: TGT) Brian Cornell is one of the worst CEOs in America.

• Target’s quarterly results and stock performance have been horrible during his tenure.

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It is a good thing for investors that they will not have Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) CEO Brian Cornell to kick around anymore. He has taken the retailer through a ruinous period. He took the job in 2014. The Target board showed remarkably bad judgment and kept Cornell on as executive board chair. In a second shocking development, the board made Michael Fiddelke, current chief operating officer, the new CEO as of February 1, 2026. As Cornell ruined Target, Fiddelke helped him. When the board announced the decision, Neil Saunders of GlobalData commented, “The biggest mistake is actually keeping Brian Cornell on the board and making him the chair. It’s just ludicrous. You’re rewarding failure, and everybody at Target knows that.”

Rewarding Failure

Target’s stock performance has been horrible. Over the past five years, it is down 49% while the market is up 88%. In the past year, it is down 30% as the market has risen 15%. Year to date, the figures are about the same. By way of comparison, Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) stock is up 118% in the past five years and Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) 135% higher.

Target has been dogged quarter after quarter by bad earnings. In the most recently reported quarter, net sales fell 1.5% to $25.3 billion. Earnings decreased 18.2% to $1.52 per share. For the first three quarters of the year, the figures were just as poor. Revenue fell 1.7% to $74.3 billion, and earnings dropped 9.6% to $5.85 per share.

According to Yahoo Finance, of 38 analysts who follow Target, 28 rate it as Sell or Hold. Their average price target is $96.52, barely up from the current price of $90.62. As Morningstar pointed out, “Though the 2026 leadership transition from CEO Brian Cornell (after 11 years at the helm) to COO Michael Fiddelke (a 20-year veteran of the business) could incite change, we’re skeptical it will be meaningful enough to regain lost market share or materially shift Target’s competitive standing given his long tenure at the retailer.”

It may be that the largest single insult to Target shareholders is that Cornell made $20,407,603 in 2024. The insult to employees is that he made 753 times their median compensation.

During the period when Cornell was CEO, everyone lost but him.

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