BLAME: Target’s costume, Callaway shoves a woman, Altria’s new director
DR
'We Know We Got This Wrong': Target Apologises and Pulls 'Offensive' Halloween Costume After Racist Backlash; Target Executive Chair Brian Cornell Sells 50,000 Shares for $8.2 Million; WHO DO YOU BLAME?
Executive Chair/former CEO (since 2014) Brian Cornell: still 21% influence!
CEO Michael Fiddelke: 16% influence; started at Target in 2003; formerly COO and CFO
Why does the corporate page not list his years of service in two separate bios??
Dmitri Stockton: 8 years tenure; the double-DEI hater (Deere & Company)
Mr. Stockton provides the Board with senior leadership, marketing / design / brands, human capital management, capital deployment, information security / data privacy, financial management, risk management, reputation management, and sustainability and governance skills developed over his more than 30 years of service with General Electric Company in senior leadership positions with escalating levels of responsibility
Marketing / Design / Brands: Target's brand and focus on style and design are the cornerstones of our strategy to offer a preferred shopping experience for our guests that differentiates us in the marketplace.
Reputation management: To be successful, we must preserve, grow, and leverage the value of our reputation with our guests, Team Members, vendors, and our shareholders and appropriately respond to crisis events affecting them.
A random executive?
Chief Merchandising Officer Cara Sylvester: joined Target in 2007
Chief Community and Stakeholder Engagement Officer Kiera Fernandez: joined Target in 2001
Chief Stores Officer Adrienne Costanzo: joined Target in 2004
Black CFO representation falls 25% from 2021 peak as diversity levels off: The number of Black finance chiefs in Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies ticked down to 15 this year, according to the report from Crist Kolder Associates. WHO DO YOU BLAME?
Tractor Supply Co.: Fully eliminated its DEI goals, retired carbon emission targets, and withdrew sponsorships from social and cultural events.
Deere & Company: Ended participation in social awareness parades and pledged to eliminate diversity quotas and identity-based affinity group funding.
Target: Scaled back its "Racial Equity Action and Change" roadmap, modified its strategy for Pride Month merchandise, and adjusted internal diversity goals.
Walmart: Ended key equity training programs, modified its third-party seller guidelines, and scaled back specific minority supplier programs.
Lowe’s: Ended participation in external LGBTQ+ advocacy surveys and consolidated its employee resource groups under a centralized oversight structure.
Ford Motor Company: Scaled back internal diversity targets, stopped participating in third-party workplace index surveys, and unlinked executive pay from DEI metrics.
Harley-Davidson: Discontinued its dedicated DEI function, eliminated diversity quotas for supplier contracts, and ended HRC index reporting.
Molson Coors: Removed DEI quotas from executive incentive plans and stepped back from external diversity rankings.
Meta: Reorganized its human resources departments, eliminating specialized DEI teams and specific supplier diversity programs in favor of broader recruitment practices.
Amazon: Phased out several internal affinity programs and explicit representation targets for hiring.
McDonald’s: Retired numerical demographic goals for senior management roles and paused external workplace diversity surveys.
Goldman Sachs: Ended its policy requiring companies it takes public to have at least one diverse board member.
The double (and triple?) dippers:
Dmitri Stockton: director at Target & Deere
John May CEO/Chair Deere & Ford Motor director
Marvin Ellison: CEO/Chair at Lowe’s after 15 years at Target
Jim Farley: CEO Ford Motor & McDonald’s director & former Harley-Davison director MM
Trump 2.0/Elon
Shareholder opposition to executive pay eases globally
Europe: NO VOTES for past year fell nearly 6 percentage points year-over-year to 25.2%, the lowest average level since at least 2018.
United States: Say on Pay Average Support (S&P 500): Rose to 90.4% (up from 89.7%).
Failed Votes (<50% Support): Inched higher to 1.4% (up from 1.2% the previous year).
WHO DO YOU BLAME?
Proxy Advisory Firms (ISS and Glass Lewis): issued fewer NO VOTE recommendations on Say on Pay proposals than in previous proxy seasons
Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street: backing Say on Pay at higher rates and industry-wide move toward pass-through voting has fragmented voting blocks and diluted organized shareholder pressure
Compensation Committees: must be tweaking pay structures just enough to secure support behind closed doors
Anti-woke political pressure: Elon/Trump 2.0
Total Shareholder Return: greed is good
Business has lost the trust of a generation: Just 17% of Americans told Gallup in 2026 they have real confidence in big business; among adults under 35, nearly half now view socialism favorably: WHO DO YOU BLAME?
The lies: blaming layoffs on AI MM
The broken promises: return-to-office mandates
The populist math: CEO pay ratios
Elon/Bezos/Zuck/Altman
Jamie Dimon
Larry Fink
MM
Altria Announces Election of Steve Presley to Altria’s Board of Directors
PART 1: WHO DO YOU BLAME for this woeful, information-free 8K disclosure about Presley joining the board?: “Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers. On August 27, 2026, the Board of Directors (the “Board”) of Altria Group, Inc. (“Altria”) increased the size of the Board from 10 to 11 directors and elected Steven W. Presley to the Board, in each case, effective August 27, 2026. The Board also elected Mr. Presley to the Board’s Compensation and Talent Development, Innovation and Finance Committees, effective August 27, 2026. The Board affirmatively determined that Mr. Presley qualifies as an independent director under the New York Stock Exchange listing standards and Altria’s standards for director independence. Mr. Presley will be compensated for his service on the Board pursuant to Altria’s existing compensation program for non-employee directors, which is described under “Director Compensation” in Altria’s proxy statement for its 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders (filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 2, 2026) and is incorporated by reference in this Item 5.02.”
General Counsel Bob McCarter
Bob went from representing Philip Morris externally to internally, once arguing that a woman’s smoking-caused carotid stenosis was caused by her bad genetics, not smoking
Chief Compliance Officer/Chief Human Resources Officer Charlie Whitaker
Also a lawyer
CEO Sal Mancuso
Was the audit/tax department
This firm is literally run by lawyers, accountants, and marketing
PART 2: WHO DO YOU BLAME for the CHOICE of Presley himself?
Nom committee: Ian Clarke, Marjorie Connelly, Matt Davis, Rich Stoddart, Ellen Strahlman, Chair Debra Kelly-Ennis
Expanded the board AND added Presley, white male, despite having NO BLACK PEOPLE on the board and two of the 5 women have >12 years tenure, only 4 of the 11 directors got tagged as having merit
The number of committees - SIX different committees with SIX members in each (except audit which is 5) for 10 directors at the time - they needed to add ANYONE because they were exhausted from so many committee meetings
Rich Stoddart DR
Member of Nom/CG (also Audit, “Innovation”, and “Social Responsibility”)
Was CEO of Leo Burnett - advertising agency that handled massive portion of Nestle USA advertising. Presley was CEO of Nestle USA.
Callaway Golf CEO met with backlash over apology for Good Good video depicting abuse
The ad: In the footage, Good Good personality Garrett Clark charges at Alexis Miestowski, knocks her onto the grass, then stands over her and says, "Do not touch my new driver."
The company issued a statement on Friday, but CEO Chip Brewer did a social media post this morning stating: "That approval should never have happened. Mistakes were made, and we are taking the matter very seriously. I want to make it clear that we sincerely apologize for the video." He did not apologize to women.
WHO DO YOU BLAME?
EVP and President of Callaway Golf Glenn Hickey who leads sales and marketing, whose prior work includes being a bond trader and getting a business degree from San Diego State, but was absent for the “don’t shove a woman in an ad” lesson (possibly)
Good Good and its CEO Matt Kendrick who made the ad for Callaway and posted, “Interesting that @CallawayGolf asks us to make an ad then approves it then asks us to take the fall then drops us in a coordinated media blitz and covers it up by giving a million dollars away thinking everyone will be ok with it. 30 for 39 will be legendary.” He also apologized. But clearly more annoyed at Callaway than, you know, sorry for women?
The women on the board and the management team - they should have caught this before it got out! Oh, what? There’s TWO women on the board (one auditor who is ex-Boeing, a company with no challenges, and the other a Chief People Officer at a food company) and ONE woman in management (Chief People Officer)? None of whom would have seen the ad??? Oops.
Tom Dundon - who, according to the Callaway 2026 Proxy Statement, has been a director since “not applicable” - but does own more than 10% of the stock and has 56% influence over the company according to Free Float data MM
