Cotopaxi: Stewardship to Succession

Cotopaxi is a company built from the ground up to be socially conscious, from their governance structure to their deeply ingrained core values. Despite being in a market dominated by incumbents like Patagonia, they've done well in the past, bringing in around $160 million in revenue in 2023 while donating millions outright and carefully maintaining ethical internal business practices. But just as the company began taking off, founder Davis Smith left the company to pursue religious mission work. He spent years, starting the search in 2019 before finally stepping down in July 2022, looking for a successor, eventually finding a replacement in seasoned industry executive Damien Huang. "When I met Damien, I knew almost instantly that he needed to be CEO." "It hasn’t been hard to pass things on to him. I probably even did it a bit too fast." (Real Leaders, 2023). Unexpectedly, Damien left the company in September 2024. Cotopaxi has since promoted another internal hire to CEO, but without Smith's direct oversight, what will this turnover of key strategic leaders mean for the company?