On Running Co-CEOs Caspar Coppetti and David Allemann
Your Prediction Machine at Work
Growing businesses will inevitably reach a plateau. When that happens, two narratives will emerge: the version a leader tells themself, and the version they tell stakeholders. The difference between the two is most telling.
One version starts from within. The company tightened their strategy and got selective. Walking away from deals or customer segments that didn’t fit is the internal plan. The other version involves external forces. The market cooled off, customer preferences have shifted, or competitors are more formidable, and nobody's said it out loud yet.
The tension between both stories is the interpretation. Both are based on the same set of numbers, and picking the wrong one has a real cost. A Swiss running-shoe company that built its whole identity on saying no to easy growth just told its investors a slowdown was the internal plan working. One analyst, on the record, wasn't convinced enough to stay quiet about it.
Trying to Outrun the Fallout
On Holding reported second-quarter results on August 11, 2026. They brought in less money than Wall Street expected as its wholesale business slowed. The stock closed down more than 20 percent that day, Motley Fool tracked it as the stock's worst trading day since it went public in 2021. What happened?
In short, On shipped fewer shoes to U.S. stores on purpose so they wouldn't pile up on shelves and end up marked down. Co-founder and co-CEO David Allemann told investors on the call that the slowdown was the company protecting its brand on purpose. On was "proving that a brand can achieve global scale without eroding premium positioning or margin ambitions." Regarding the slowdown in wholesale, Allemann said, "we choose not to build in-channel inventory that could compromise our full price integrity."
On the call, co-CEO Caspar Coppetti pointed to a similar move On made in Europe about three years earlier: the company had walked away entirely from a lower-end, discount-prone retail channel there because it didn't feel premium enough for the brand, and he credited that shift with the strong growth the region is posting now.
Jefferies analyst Randal Konik told WWD he wasn't buying the framing this time. The measure of actual consumer sales versus shipments in the U.S. was softening, and Konik argued that this was a “demand signal, not just a sell-in choice.” Williams Trading's Sam Poser reached a similar conclusion in a research note WWD cited: wholesale demand for On, especially among specialty running stores, showed signs of cooling on its own, beyond what supply the company had chosen to withhold.
That single quarter is part of a longer pattern. On's own numbers show sales growth peaking at 40 percent in the first quarter of 2025 and slowing every quarter since. That’s six straight quarters of deceleration. On had made this same bet once before and it worked out; this time, investors were being asked to trust the same read in a new region, without years of results yet to prove it right.
Two Truths Competing for Reality
Allemann's "premium discipline" story tracks with the brand’s past strategy. The European pruning Coppetti cited on the call happened, and it did precede strong growth there. Those historic facts are embedded into the co-founders’ Mindset and are being used to filter the data to shape their reality.
A leader that has been right about reading restraint as Strategy before has less reason to stop and check whether this time is different. The difference here is the Market change. The Americas declining performance data is also true, and it’s telling analysts a different reality.
Leadership shifts at On are also influencing the system under the surface. Marc Maurer left the co-CEO role in April 2025 after twelve years, and Martin Hoffmann's turn as sole CEO ended less than a year later. Hoffmann’s departure was announced in March 2026, just three weeks after On had guided investors to expect its slowest annual growth in years. By May, founders Allemann and Coppetti returned to the co-CEO seats they had stepped out of when the deceleration began. Konik noted the leadership churn itself, saying "the departure of two CEOs in a year is notable for a company that considers itself in the first inning of growth."
The erosion hasn't finished playing out. Six quarters of slowing growth is a real trend, not a definitive failure. The next two or three quarters are the real test of which story is right.
The Lesson For You
When the numbers in your business soften, pause and reflect on the explanation you commit to. The story you tell and the reality of the situation can drift apart for months without anyone catching it. The person best positioned to notice the gap is also the person responsible for how their prediction machine interprets and responds to truths.
On had seven named analysts on that call, a board reading the same guidance number in real time, and investors that repriced the stock within hours of hearing it. You have whatever your gut tells you at eleven at night when the pipeline report reads a little emptier than last month's. It took hours for the stakeholders to make a public determination, but it may take you months or years to notice.
What in your business have you started calling a strategy that started as something you didn't choose?
If someone outside your business looked at your last two quarters with no access to your explanation for them, what would they call it instead?
Who do you rely on to challenge your read before you've already committed to the answer?
The Vital6 Assessment surfaces honest questions that cut through the narrative if you'd rather find out now than explain your story later.
Want to go deep on the Vital6? I wrote a book about it.
