Laxman Narasimhan has officially taken over as chief executive of Starbucks Corp., the coffee giant announced Monday.
Narasimhan’s hiring as Starbucks’
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CEO was announced at the start of September, and he joined the company as incoming CEO at the beginning of October. He appears to be assuming his new role a bit earlier than expected: The Sept. 1 announcement of his hiring said he would take over as CEO and join the board on April 1, 2023.
He succeeds Howard Schultz, the company’s founder, who will remain on the company’s board of directors.
“Over the past five months, [Narasimhan] has embarked on a unique immersion experience, traveling to work with partners (employees) in over 30 stores, manufacturing plants and in support centers around the world, earning his barista certification along the way,” the company said in a Monday morning release. “He became immersed in the reinvention plans for the company led by Schultz.”
Read more: New CEO of Starbucks — a ‘world-class leader,’ says Howard Schultz — will do a stint as barista
Narasimhan is the former CEO of consumer-health company Reckitt and a veteran of PepsiCo
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He also served as a senior partner at McKinsey & Co., where he focused on consumer, retail and technology matters. There, he “led the firm’s thinking on the future of retail,” Starbucks said in its hiring announcement.
Schultz, meanwhile, wrote a letter to the company’s leaders on his last day as CEO, calling them the “future of Starbucks.”
“Our company is like a river — the stewards of it will change over time, but it’s always growing and changing, carving a new path and moving forward to something better,” he wrote.
Added Schultz: “The world needs Starbucks — and Starbucks needs all of you.”
