A CEO asked employees to move across the country. Then he quit
In January 2025, Fortune Brands Innovations announced it was moving its company’s portfolio from individual offices across the country to one central headquarters outside Chicago, which meant hundreds of employees would need to relocate, or else lose their jobs. The move would take place in a phased approach beginning at the end of the summer, then-CEO Nicholas Fink told employees. Unsurprisingly, the news sent a jolt through the company, which owns several home and security brands including Moen and Master Lock, employees told Fast Company. On LinkedIn, a steady stream of goodbye posts from employees who refused the move emerged over the next several months. That summer, the company said that while most employees chose not to relocate, it exceeded industry benchmarks for the number of people who said “yes” to the move, though it declined to provide specific figures. Then, in February 2026, in the midst of that multi-phase relocation, Fink quit. Constellation Brands, the maker of Corona beer, announced that Fink had accepted a position as its next president and CEO. On the same day, Fortune Brands announced that Amit Banati, a veteran consumer goods executive and existing board member, would replace Fink. But that succession never happened. According to The Wall Street Journal, activist investor Ed Garden built a stake in Fortune Brands, having criticized Fink as “lacking leadership and industry experience” and arguing that the company risked making the same mistake with Banati. Banati never took the job and stepped down from the board—though he still walked away with an $18.4 million payout, Fortune reported. In March, the company announced it had launched a new CEO search and had appointed David Barry, a Fortune Brands exec who’d been with the company for over a decade, as interim CEO, effective immediately. In the past five years, under Fink’s leadership, the company saw slowing sales growth and declining profit margins as housing demand cooled, while competitors