Three Leaders on the Hot Seat in 2020

Victoria’s Secret and its parent company were struggling even before the name Jeffrey Epstein started making headlines. But in July, ties between the now deceased financier and L Brands Inc.’s billionaire founder and chairman came under a microscope with Epstein’s arrest on charges of sex trafficking of girls. It’s one of the last positions an executive running a lingerie business needed to be in, even if Wexner said he cut ties more than a decade ago and was “embarrassed” to have once been so close to him. Asking to leave things in the past has become more difficult in the #MeToo world.

Regaining a once-unquestioned market share will also be a challenge; since 2015, L Brands has lost $23 billion of its value as upstarts Aerie by American Eagle Outfitters Inc. and Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty prove more adept than Victoria’s Secret at navigating body-positive cultural tides. Women are demanding more from a brand that was started in the 1970s to make men more comfortable buying them lingerie. An activist investor even called for Wexner, the longest-serving CEO among Fortune 500 companies and L Brands’ largest shareholder, to consider spinning off Bath & Body Works to counter Victoria’s drag.