Harley-Davidson’s search for a new CEO is turning out to be anything but an easy ride for the iconic American motorcycle maker.
Investment firm H Partners, a major investor with 9.1% of Harley’s shares, in an open letter filed on Wednesday, urged fellow shareholders to remove three longtime directors from Harley’s eight-member board at its annual meeting in mid-May by withholding votes for them. H Partners said the board had not held Harley CEO Jochen Zeitz accountable for what it called his repeated “strategic execution failures” and “severe underperformance.” (Harley announced last week that Zeitz, CEO since 2020 and board member for 18 years, would resign but stay in his role until a successor is found. H Partners wants him out now.)
That followed a letter issued a day earlier by Harley-Davidson, which accused H Partners of “publicly campaigning” against it and saying that those efforts are also “adversely impacting the CEO search process and ongoing execution of the Hardwire strategic plan,” referring to a turnaround plan it launched in 2021.
In early April, H Partners’ Jared Dourdeville, who had been a Harley director since 2022, abruptly resigned from the board, saying among other things that Harley had “cultural depletion” because of its work-from-home policies and the exit of several senior leaders. And that was not his only point of contention with the rest of the board.
Harley said that it began a CEO search late last year after Zeitz expressed interest in retiring and has interviewed three potential CEOs, including one supported by Dourdeville, but declined to offer any the job. The company has also said that Dourdeville had cast only one vote against the majority during his time as a director and that as recently as November 2024 he had expressed support for Zeitz.
H Partners’ campaign comes as Harley-Davidson’s shares and revenue have wilted. Its stock is down 42% compared with a year ago, and in 2024, revenue was $5.2 billion, down 11% from the year before. The company, typically associated with middle-aged bikers, has struggled to offer products that catch on with younger riders. Several media outlets have reported that Harley dealers are unhappy with options for entry-level riders, leaving them with unsold inventory. What’s more, the specter of a tariff war has weighed on shares.
Harley’s Hardwire turnaround plan, now in its final year, focuses on “its position as the most desirable motorcycle brand in the world,” according to its annual report. That includes efforts to maximize profitability by focusing on certain segments of the market, as well as by building a sizable electric motorcycle business and expanding further beyond motorcycles into categories like clothing.
One notable thing about H Partners’ campaign is that the firm is not nominating its own replacement directors, making this a withhold-the-vote campaign, fairly rare among activist campaigns, but similar to one it successfully waged against mattress maker Tempur Sealy a decade ago. According to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported this conflict earlier this week, Harley’s bylaws stipulate that directors who win less than 50% of votes in an election must tender their resignations.
