Adidas confirmed that it has begun a formal search to replace its long-time and embattled CEO Herbert Hainer.
 
An executive search firm has been hired to find a replacement, Igor Landau, chairman of the company’s supervisory board, said in a statement released last Thursday. The search will involve both internal and external candidates.

The search for Hainer’s successor was first reported by Germany’s Manager Magazin, which said recruiter Egon Zehnder has been hired.

“The supervisory board will now start to look for the best possible candidate for my succession, both inside and outside the Adidas group,” Hainer wrote in a letter to employees released to the press last week. “This will be a long-term process that has just begun.”

Hainer, who turned 60 last July, has been CEO since 2001, making him the longest serving boss among German blue-chip companies.

In May 2014, Hainer’s contract, due to end to 2015, was extended until March 2017 for succession reasons. A handover in 2017 was said to be logical since it’s a quieter year between the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and the 2018 football World Cup in Russia. The launch of formal search sparked speculation that the successor might arrive much earlier.

Adidas’ board and Hainer have come under increasing pressure since last March, when the company issued the first of three profit warnings on the heels of disappointing sales in the U.S. and Russia and its TaylorMade golf business. Last summer, Adidas scrapped a Route 2015 target of an 11 percent operating margin and launched an aggressive stock buyback plan. Shares fell 38 percent in 2014.

Sales have more than doubled during Hainer’s 14-year tenure, but shareholders have fretted about Nike’s gains in Adidas’ home market of Europe. The Adidas brand has also lost momentum in the U.S. market in recent years and its acquisition of the Reebok brand in 2006 hasn’t done much to close the gap with Nike. Indeed, the Adidas brand last year slipped into third place in the U.S. behind Under Armour.

The Adidas chief executive said he has three priorities for his remaining time in office. “To ensure that the company stays on its growth track for 2015 and beyond, to get the new strategic business plan off to a great start, [and] to continue to pursue the already initiated generation change within our group’s senior management team,” he said.

In the employee note, Hainer, who joined Adidas as German sales director in Hardware (bags, rackets, balls) in 1987, reiterated that Adidas plans to unveil a new five-year strategic plan in late March. Hainer is forming the plan with global brand chief Eric Liedtke and sales boss Roland Auschel, his two most likely successors.

Manager Magazin said Hainer would target €20 billion of annual sales and an operating margin of at least 10 percent by 2020, up from €14.8 billion and 8.3 percent last year respectively.

Hainer also noted that 2015 is off to a “fantastic start,” citing its sale of the non-core Rockport brand, restructuring activities around its Adidas-TaylorMade Golf, and its blockbuster deals for sneaker collaborations with singers Pharrell Williams and Kanye West.

Hainer also noted he had already promoted several younger managers under Liedtke and Auschel, with 12 of their 26 direct reports new in their positions. Other changes have included combining supply chain and IT under another executive.

“I am very conscious that all these changes weren’t always easy and weren’t always fun to implement, also because a lot of external criticism was brought on the company,” Hainer wrote.