The Next Shift: WM Passes the Keys to John Morris

By Siam Sukkhee Trading Co., Ltd — 2026-08-26 — Waste360 (recycling/scrap)

Jim Fish announced his retirement on Wednesday. After ten years as CEO and 25-plus years inside Waste Management, he's stepping away.

The news itself isn't a shock—WM's board has been planning this for a while, as far as I can tell. These things don't happen by accident.

John Morris, who's been President since May 2025, moves into the top job on January 4th, 2027. Fish stays on in an advisory role through February, which is the standard playbook—hand off the keys, stick around long enough to answer questions, then actually leave.

Morris isn't new to this. He's clocked more than 30 years in the waste business, which in an industry that values institutional knowledge, something like that matters. He's run field operations. He was chief operating officer before being bumped to President. He's come up through the actual work—New York City market manager, Mid-Atlantic operations—rather than parachuting in from consulting.

That's not nothing.

Under Fish, WM did the obvious big moves. A $4.6 billion acquisition of Advanced Disposal in 2020. The $7.2 billion Stericycle deal in 2024. Heavy investment in recycling infrastructure and renewable natural gas. The company grew on his watch. Shareholders got paid. The story was clean.

Which raises the question: does Morris run the same playbook, or does something shift?

Actually, that's not the right question. The waste business doesn't reward wild pivots. It rewards consistency. Margins matter more than moonshots. The guy who keeps the trucks running and the contracts renewing is worth more than the visionary who makes a mess. Morris knows this because he's spent his career in operations, not strategy meetings.

Whether that's what the company needs now—more of the same, or something different—that's for the board and the market to sort out. Morris gets to run the thing for the next decade, assuming the board doesn't get nervous.

Tara Hemmer, who was chief sustainability officer, already moved into chief operating officer back in May. The succession isn't a one-man job. It's a pipeline.

The waste industry tends to do these transitions quietly. No drama. No surprise departures. It's all planned years in advance. Which probably means it works better than the sectors where CEOs get forced out or retire on a Tuesday and nobody saw it coming. WM's approach is methodical. Whether methodical is enough, we'll find out.

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