@OP I love the confidence here, like Nike has a tiny parliament hidden behind the berm where employees can overthrow leadership with enough upvotes.
“Can we petition to get them back?” Sure. Maybe after that we can vote on quarterly earnings, elect the CFO by popular ballot, and let the cafeteria decide the org chart.
Nike is a publicly traded corporation. It is not a democracy, a co-op, a student council, or your fantasy football league. Executives and the board make leadership decisions based on business strategy, performance, politics, succession plans, cost, and a dozen other factors employees will never see.
Also, “my team liked this person” is not exactly a rigorous leadership metric. Plenty of incompetent leaders are charming. Plenty of effective leaders are difficult. Popularity is not a KPI.
Recommend talented people? Absolutely.
Pretend there is some employee constitutional mechanism for resurrecting your favorite former VP? That is adorable.
There is no ballot box at WHQ. You work for Nike, not the Republic of Swoosh.