Howard Schultz

Howard D. Schultz is an American businessman and author who served as both chairman and CEO of Starbucks (SBUX ) from 1986 to 2000, from 2008 to 2017, and as interim CEO since 2022. Schultz also owned the Seattle SuperSonics basketball team from 2001 to 2006.

Schultz began working at the coffeehouse, Starbucks, in 1982. He later left and opened Il Giornale, a specialty coffeeshop, that merged with Starbucks during the late-1980s. Under Schultz, the company established a large network of stores which has influenced coffee culture in Seattle, the U.S., and internationally. Following large-scale distribution deals Starbucks became the largest coffee-house chain in the world. Schultz took the company public in 1992 and used a $271 million valuation to double their store count in a series of highly publicized coffee wars. He stepped down as CEO in 2000, succeeded by Orin Smith.

During the 2008 financial crisis, Schultz returned as chief executive. Succeeding Jim Donald, Schultz led a mass firing of executives and employees and shuttered hundreds of stores. He orchestrated multiple acquisitions of American and Chinese beverage companies, introduced a national loyalty program, and enforced fair trade standards. His aggressive expansion in Chinese markets has been credited[by whom?] with reconciling the country's tea-culture with coffee consumption in China. Schultz was succeeded by Kevin Johnson as CEO in April 2017 and Myron Ullman as chairman in June 2018.

Schultz has written four books on business. He is an outspoken neoliberal. Schultz publicly considered a candidacy in the 2012, 2016, and 2020 U.S. presidential elections as an independent candidate. He declined to join all three contests. His positions on domestic politics are socially liberal and fiscally moderate. In foreign policy, he is seen as a "liberal hawk", favoring American-led international affairs and neoliberalism. Schultz was named the 209th-richest person in the U.S. by Forbes with a net worth of $4.3 billion (October 2020) Schultz started the Schultz Family Foundation to help military veterans and fight youth unemployment.

On March 16, 2022 Starbucks announced that the current CEO Kevin Johnson is retiring and that Howard Schultz would take over as interim CEO. He will serve as interim CEO until Laxman Narasimhan takes over as CEO in April 2023.

After graduating Schultz stayed in Michigan and worked at a ski lodge for a year. He then took up a job in New York City as a salesman for Xerox, and was recruited by Swedish kitchenware manufacturer PAI Partners in 1979 to be general manager of its U.S. subsidiary, Hammarplast. At Hammarplast, Schultz was responsible for the coffee machine manufacturer's U.S. operations, and in 1981 he visited the Starbucks Coffee Company in Seattle, Washington to fill their plastic cone filter orders.