Starbucks is Getting a New CEO

☕️ Howard Schultz is back in charge of Starbucks – for a third time. The coffee chain’s current CEO Kevin Johnson will retire in April after five years in the position and will be replaced in the interim by Schultz, the company announced Wednesday.

• Schultz previously served as CEO from 1986 to 2000, presiding over the chain’s multibillion dollar rise, and then again from 2008 to 2017. He also weighed a potential presidential run in 2020.
• Over Johnson’s tenure, shares of Starbucks rose more than 50% but underperformed the S&P 500, which went up 83% over the same period.
• The company’s shares are down almost 30% this year as it struggles with higher costs overall and weaker sales in China.

📸 The big picture: Starbucks sales nosedived when the pandemic started, but roared back as customers shifted to to-go and drive-thru and placed orders on Starbucks' mobile app.

The coffee chain also shifted its approach to building new cafes and is now adding more smaller stores with less room for seating and more emphasis on to-go orders in urban areas, while adding more drive-thru space in suburban locations, Reuters reports.

And its search for a permanent CEO comes amidst growing unionization efforts by the company’s baristas. To date, roughly 140 Starbucks stores in 26 states have petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to unionize.

• Six locations so far have voted in favor of a union – and on Tuesday, the NLRB filed a complaint over accusations Starbucks retaliated against two employees in Phoenix who were seeking to unionize their store location.