Starbucks CEO stepping down, remains chairman
Howard Schultz, who helped turn Starbucks into an iconic global brand as well known for its activism as its coffee blends, will step down from the role of CEO in April.
Schultz will become the company’s executive chairman, concentrating on ramping up Starbucks Reserve Roasteries, a new premium experience that the company is betting on to boost growth worldwide, as well as the company’s forays into community activism. Kevin Johnson, the company’s current president and COO, will become the CEO, retaining the title of president.
“In all my years at Starbucks I have never been more energized or exhilarated about the opportunities that lie ahead,’’ Schultz said in a conference call Thursday. “I’m not leaving the company. ... I’m going to contribute to what I consider a significant growth opportunity.”
It’s the second time since Schultz bought the Starbucks Coffee Company in the late 1980s that he has stepped down from the role of CEO. He resigned in 2000, only to return eight years later.
But “the differences between then and now couldn’t be greater,” he said, noting that when he returned to the top job in 2008, Starbucks and others were riding out the Great Recession. “The management team at that time ... just did not have the capability or experience to really navigate through that difficult period.” In recent years, he says, the company has assembled “the strongest leadership team in our history.”
Johnson, who began his career as a systems engineer for IBM, joined the Starbucks board in 2009 and began working at the company in 2015. He previously spent 16 years at Microsoft working on global sales and marketing, then five years in Silicon Valley as CEO of Juniper Networks.
It is Johnson’s deep background in technology that Schultz said will be pivotal for Starbucks’ future growth.
“We’ll be opening globally in years to come roasteries, reserve stores and reserve bars that will be customer destination venues,’’ Schultz says.
By the end of 2019, the company plans to have unveiled more than 20 roasteries and to open more than 1,000 reserve stores, spaces that will highlight new brewing techniques and artisanal food. Schultz said those places are expected to “deliver twice the unit economics of a typical Starbucks store.”
Schultz, who will continue to be chairman of the board, still will spearhead the social causes that have sometimes made him and Starbucks a lightning rod.