(Adds recent CEO changes at CVS, Nike, Nestle, Starbucks, Boeing and Hertz)
Oct 22 (Reuters) - Major companies, including CVS Health and Nike, are overhauling top leadership and hiring back veteran company or industry leaders as CEOs, hoping to quell growing investor concerns about company performance.
Here are some "boomerang" executives, armed with experience and industry knowledge, who were brought back to top roles in the recent past:
CVS HEALTH - DAVID JOYNER
CVS Health replaced CEO Karen Lynch with David Joyner after investors, including activist Glenview Capital, pressured the company to improve its stagnant share price. Joyner was a CVS veteran who retired before returning to the company last year.
NIKE - ELLIOTT HILL
Elliott Hill is back at the top of Nike, which is shaking up its leadership to revive sales and battle tough competition. Hill, who succeeded John Donahoe, was Nike's president, consumer marketplace, leading all commercial and market operations before retiring in 2020.
NESTLE - LAURENT FREIXE
Nestle in August replaced CEO Mark Schneider with company veteran Laurent Freixe, as it struggles to grow sales. Freixe first joined in France in 1986, going on to lead Nestle's European business during the 2008 financial crisis. He headed the Americas unit and from 2022 also its Latin America business.
STARBUCKS - BRIAN NICCOL
The coffee giant named Chipotle Mexican Grill head Brian Niccol as its CEO in August. He replaced Laxman Narasimhan under whose tenure the stock faltered and lost nearly one-quarter of its value. Niccol is known for reviving the burrito chain with sales at Chipotle doubling to about $10 billion in fiscal 2023.
BOEING - KELLY ORTBERG
Kelly Ortberg was named Boeing's new CEO in July succeeding Dave Calhoun to turn the struggling planemaker around. Ortberg has more than 30 years of experience in the aerospace industry and had steered Rockwell Collins' merger with United Technologies and RTX until his retirement in 2021.
HERTZ - GIL WEST
Gil West was appointed by Hertz as its CEO in April succeeding Stephen Scherr as the rental car company battles higher repair costs and weak demand. West was the chief operating officer of Delta Airlines and GM's Cruise unit.
OPENAI - SAM ALTMAN
Sam Altman reached an agreement with OpenAI to return as CEO in November 2023, after a brief tumultuous period following his ouster by the company's board, which had given scant explanation for firing him.
UBS - SERGIO ERMOTTI
Sergio Ermotti returned as CEO of the Swiss bank in 2023 amid challenges related to UBS's takeover of peer Credit Suisse. He first took the helm of the lender in 2011 and stayed in the top job until 2020 when he was replaced by Ralph Hamers.
DISNEY - ROBERT IGER
Robert Iger first became the CEO of the U.S. entertainment group in 2005. He left the position in 2020, but Disney's board of directors asked him to return in 2022, when the company faced operating losses at its streaming unit.
STARBUCKS - HOWARD SCHULTZ
Howard Schultz served as Starbucks CEO on three occasions. The former NBA franchise owner launched the company's coffeehouse model in 1980s before stepping down in 2000, only to return in 2008 for a nine-year stint. He served a final term as interim CEO from 2022 until last March.
(Reporting by Boleslaw Lasocki and Victor Goury-Laffont in Gdansk, and Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Milla Nissi, Jane Merriman and Arun Koyyur)
((boleslaw.lasocki@thomsonreuters.com; +48 58 769 66 00;))
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