Wall Street this week cheered Nike’s move to fire CEO John Donahoe, as the sneaker giant’s stock, which has struggled over the past year due to falling sales, rose more than 8 percent.

The share price increase came as Elliott Hill, a longtime Nike executive who left the popular sportswear brand in 2020 only to return as its new CEO earlier this week, sought to encourage employees and boost their morale following his predecessor’s departure.

“I know it hasn’t been easy, and we’ve certainly taken our fair share of shots,” Elliott Hill, who started as an intern at Nike more than 30 years ago and rose to become company president before retiring in 2020, wrote in an email to employees on Thursday.

Nike shares rose more than 5 percent after trading began on Wall Street on Friday. They are up more than 8 percent for the week after the Oregon-based company announced Thursday that Donahoe would resign.

Donahoe, who was hired by Nike after a long career at consulting firm Bain & Co., eBay and software company ServiceNow, earned nearly $104 million in salary and benefits during his tenure as CEO, according to Bloomberg News.

However, under his leadership, Nike lost nearly $40 billion in market capitalization.

Since January 1, Nike shares have lost nearly 20% of their value as inflation and intense competition have hit the company’s annual sales.

Wall Street’s desire for a change at the top of Nike was awakened last month when Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management announced it owned a significant stake in the company.

According to reports, sources close to Ackman had indicated that the hedge fund billionaire supported Hill as Donahoe’s successor.

As of Friday, Ackman’s hedge fund had amassed 16.3 million Nike shares. The Post has reached out to Ackman for comment.

In his introductory email, Hill wrote that he plans to hold a general meeting on October 14, the day he will officially take over leadership of the company he has worked for for more than 30 years.

Bloomberg News reported on the email.

Hill offered employees the opportunity to email him directly and send them “questions in advance with their concerns.”

The email included a video message urging employees to “act quickly and with a sense of urgency.”

In the video, Hill told employees that throughout his career at Nike, he had “learned to always put the consumer at the center of everything and every decision.”

He said it was time for employees to “come together and unite as a team.”

Donahoe left the company after five years at the helm, during which he was tasked with strengthening Nike’s online presence and direct sales.

The plan seemed to work, as Nike achieved annual sales of over $50 billion for the first time in fiscal year 2023.

Since then, however, analysts have become more pessimistic about Nike, with annual sales forecast to reach $48.87 billion in fiscal year 2025.

A significant portion of Nike’s generous compensation package for Donahoe, who was backed by co-founder Phil Knight, was tied up in stock grants worth $35 million that replaced the pay he gave up when he left ServiceNow.

Donahoe’s compensation was in the top 0.1 percent of the top 1 percent of all CEOs in the United States.

Nike is struggling to maintain its market dominance as consumers wary of inflation and limit spending on non-essential goods, and China’s recovery from the pandemic is slower than expected.

The company also faces tough competition in the sports and leisure industry, with rival brands such as Hoka and Roger Federer’s On hot on its heels.