rs to simply manage growth but to recover it. And the paths they take offer a preview of the next era of retail. The rise of the turnaround CEO  Few hires capture this urgency more clearly than Kering’s appointment of former Renault chief Luca de Meo, a corporate mechanic brought in to repair the group’s most troubled engine. With Gucci sales plunging and group profits dropping 46 per cent in the first half of this year, Kering needed an outsider willing to confront structural issues that had long gone unaddressed.  De Meo’s track record of “disciplined transformation” at Renault, where he returned the company to profitability within 18 months, is exactly the kind of surgical leadership luxury brands increasingly require.  Nike’s Elliott Hill is another figure emblematic of this shift. Nearly a year into his return, Hill’s mandate is not innovation for innovation’s sake, but a hard reset of the fundamentals: simplification, tighter wholesale partnerships and recalibrated product pipelines. Even as Nike reported an 86 per cent drop in net income, investors signalled confidence in Hill’s plan.  Similarly, Starbucks’ Brian Niccol, long hailed for his Chipotle turnaround, is now being tested by an environment far less forgiving. Despite aggressive operational streamlining, store refreshes and renewed emphasis on Starbucks’ core product, the path to recovery remains uneven. Yet Niccol’s appointment underscores a broader theme: retail’s most powerful brands are reverting to operators who understand how to stabilise systems before reinventing them. Operational execution is back in fashion  Across mass retail and specialty retail, operational leadership is once again the currency of success. Target’s new CEO, Michael Fiddelke, embodies this shift. Having engineered more than $2 billion in efficiencies and led the creation of Target’s Enterprise Acceleration Office, he represents a generation of leaders who move seamlessly between finance, merchandising and supply chain. Ulta Beauty’s Kecia Steelman, meanwhile, has turned a challenging year into one marked by renewed investor confidence. Her decision to streamline segments, launch a new digital marketplace and revive international expansion shows how operational precision can unlock growth even in a saturated category. John Cheston’s reputation for disciplined expansion and brand strengthening at Smiggle made him an obvious choice for Lovisa, a jewellery brand whose future rests on predictable, repeatable global growth. Changing of the Guards first appeared in Inside Retail Asia magazine’s November issue. For the full picture and deeper insights into all 10 appointments featured in the report, please read the complete global report here.