Photos by Taylor Kelliher, Joshua Trujillo, Connor Surdi

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Laxman Narasimhan took the helm of Starbucks as the <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2023/laxman-narasimhan-assumes-role-of-starbucks-chief-executive-officer/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">new chief executive officer</a> on Monday, but before that, he spent almost six months being mentored by Howard Schultz, meeting with hundreds of partners (employees) around the world, earning his barista certification, and diving into the world of coffee. As Starbucks welcomes Narasimhan to his new role as ceo at today’s Annual Meeting of Shareholders, we take a look back at the people he has met across the company and around the world.&nbsp;

“It’s been a remarkable experience for me – from our origins, where we buy coffee from over a half a million farmers, through our roasting plans, our distribution centers, and into our stores,” Narasimhan said. “This immersion has been an incredible journey and a gift.”&nbsp;

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Narasimhan was welcomed as incoming chief executive officer of Starbucks with a coffee tasting in the place where it all began – at <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2015/store-tour-inside-1912-pike-place-seattle-usa/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Seattle’s Pike Place market store</a>. Soon after, he met&nbsp; Starbucks partners <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2022/incoming-starbucks-ceo-meets-partners-at-open-forum-shares-personal-journey/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">at his first open forum</a> on Sept. 8, 2022, three weeks before he officially joined the company Oct. 1. When Schultz, then interim chief executive officer, introduced Narasimhan to partners, he said that “the leader of Starbucks, the future of the company, must be steeped in humility and must have an innate understanding of humanity.”&nbsp;&nbsp;

Schultz said as he got to know Narasimhan, he said he was stuck by his experience and leadership qualities. “I know we're going to be in great hands and I can promise you he is going to make us a better company.”&nbsp;

Listening and learning&nbsp;

Narasimhan worked with Schultz to create a unique immersion to learn about the Starbucks culture and the business.&nbsp;

“This time with Howard in stores, in the roasting plants, with partners, with investors, with customers – it's an incredible opportunity for me to be learning from one of the best entrepreneurs in the world,” Narasimhan said.&nbsp;

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Narasimhan began immersion as incoming ceo by earning his barista certification with four weeks of in-store training and visits to more than 30 stores around the world – working the drive-thru window, learning the point-of-sale system and perfecting the topping of a Pumpkin Spice Latte.&nbsp;&nbsp;

“I thought it was very important for me to put myself in the shoes of the partners and really understand what they do and how they do it,” Narasimhan said. “There were things I learned through experience in all of this. It taught me a lot.”&nbsp;&nbsp;

Alli Mendoza, a barista in Houston, was one of the partners who trained Narasimhan on the espresso bar. “People ask me what it’s like to train the ceo, like ‘Really, how was it?’” Mendoza said. “He loved interacting with people, he loves laughing and making people laugh. He just wants to learn and be a ceo who’s there for us.”&nbsp;

Coffee &amp; connection&nbsp;

In his visits to Starbucks stores, Narasimhan sat down with store managers, district managers and regional directors for their input and guidance. He said, “One piece of advice I hope to really live by was actually a question I was asked by a terrific store manager: ‘Did you earn your green apron today?’ It really got me reflective and thinking about how I could end each day in the future with that question, and hope that most days, the answer would be ‘yes.’”&nbsp;

The world of coffee&nbsp;

Narasimhan experienced the journey of Starbucks coffee from the first 10 feet to the last, starting from the fields where coffee is grown (such as Hacienda Alsacia above), to roasting plants in the United States and Europe, and Starbucks stores in London, Amsterdam, Japan, and the United States. Along the way, Narasimhan sipped countless cups of coffee. His favorite? Coffee from Guatemala.&nbsp;

Embracing innovation&nbsp;

Whether it’s hand-delivering a new cold foam blender to baristas in Seattle or testing out the virtual reality training for the new Clover Vertica™ in Minneapolis, Narasimhan has taken a hands-on approach to <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2022/recipe-for-reinvention-starbucks-unveils-innovations-for-better-customer-barista-experiences/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">new technologies to help create a better store experience</a> for partners and customers.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Celebrating with partners is one of the best part parts of the ceo job at Starbucks. In November, he attended his first <a href="https://historias.starbucks.com/en-es/press/2022/starbucks-green-apron-partners-showcase-their-coffee-craft-and-skill-at-the-latin-america-and-caribbean-barista-championship/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Barista Championship</a> at Hacienda Alsacia recognizing Starbucks coffee craft and expertise. In December, Narasimhan traveled to Arizona State University to honor the 850 Starbucks partners in the Fall 2022 graduating class who earned bachelor’s degrees through Arizona State University with the <a href="https://www.starbucks.com/careers/working-at-starbucks/education/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Starbucks College Achievement Plan</a>. In February, he spent time with partners in the Milan Roastery for the debut of <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/starbucks-oleato-olive-oil-meets-coffee" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Starbucks Oleato</a> beverages.&nbsp;

“On a very personal level, I’m going to be very connected to our partners and to our customers in the experience that we deliver – human connection,” Narasimhan said. 

Annual Meeting of Shareholders

Narasimhan led his first Starbucks Annual Meeting of Shareholders, in Seattle, on March 23, joined by board chair Mellody Hobson (right) and the Starbucks senior leadership team, including Zabrina Jenkins (left) and AJ Jones II (second from left). &nbsp;

“These past six months have enabled me to listen, to learn, and to think about what the future of Starbucks looks like and what we need to do to get there,” Narasimhan said. “As the new ceo&nbsp;of Starbucks, I am confident that I know our business and our people well, but I will continue to learn and I'm excited to continue earning my green apron every day.”&nbsp;

As Starbucks welcomes Narasimhan to his new role as ceo at the Starbucks Annual Meeting of Shareholders, we take a look back at the people he has met across the company and around the world.

Laxman Narasimhan’s immersive training – from Starbucks barista to ceo

Starbucks Canada

Photos: Laxman Narasimhan’s immersive training – from Starbucks barista to ceo

https://stories.starbucks.ca/en-ca/stories/2023/photos-laxman-narasimhans-immersive-training-from-starbucks-barista-to-ceo/

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A letter to Starbucks Customers and Starbucks Rewards Members from Kevin Johnson, Starbucks ceo and president

The world is grappling with an issue of enormous scale and human impact, and our hearts go out to all who have been affected by the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19). 

At Starbucks, we believe it is our role and responsibility during this time to prioritize two things: the health and well-being of our customers and partners while also playing a constructive role in supporting local health officials and government leaders as they work to contain the virus. Through that lens, we will continue to make decisions with vigilance and courage informed by the latest science-based information and guided by Our Mission and Values.

I wanted to personally reach out to you and provide an update on the actions that Starbucks is taking to help prevent the spread of the virus and support the health and well-being of our customers, our partners (employees) and our communities.

You may be aware that over the last few weeks we have taken a series of <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://stories.starbucks.ca/en/stories/2020/managing-through-the-dynamics-of-covid-19/" target="_blank">precautionary steps</a> in response to this developing public health impact, including increased cleaning and sanitizing procedures for our stores. We have also prepared our stores to respond quickly to any emerging situation, leveraging the considerable insights we’ve gained from our experience in China, where we continue to see encouraging signs of recovery with over 90% of stores reopened.

We appreciate your understanding that, as a customer, your Starbucks Experience may look different as we navigate through this time together. While we are currently maintaining regular operations across the U.S. and Canada, our stores are prepared to modify operations with options that still allow us to serve you your favourite beverage and food. This means that as we navigate this dynamic situation community by community and store by store, we may adapt the store experience by limiting seating to improve social distancing, enable mobile order-only scenarios for pickup via the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.starbucks.ca/coffeehouse/mobile-apps" target="_blank">Starbucks App</a> or delivery via Uber Eats, or in some cases only the Drive Thru will be open.&nbsp; As a last resort, we will close a store if we feel it is in the best interest of our customers and partners, or if we are directed to do so by government authorities. In any such situation, we expect store disruption to be temporary.

I want to also thank you for supporting our Starbucks partners who proudly wear the green apron.&nbsp;We have a long-standing history of caring for our partners, recognizing they are the heartbeat of Starbucks. That is why, as we navigate this dynamic situation, in addition to our sick leave benefit and mental health offerings, we are also <a href="https://stories.starbucks.ca/en/stories/2020/comprehensive-partner-care-during-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="expanding catastrophe pay (opens in a new tab)">expanding catastrophe pay</a> so that partners do not need to feel like they need to choose between their health and their work.

Thank you for being a loyal customer. It is our intent to remain transparent, providing the <a href="https://stories.starbucks.ca/en/stories/2020/navigating-through-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="latest information from Starbucks here (opens in a new tab)">latest information from Starbucks here</a>.

Starbucks resilience is owed to our unwavering Mission to inspire and nurture the human spirit - one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.&nbsp; 

We are privileged to serve you and your community and look forward to seeing you soon.&nbsp; 

A letter to Starbucks customers from Starbucks ceo Kevin Johnson.

Our Role And Responsibility — Navigating Through COVID-19

Letter to Customers: Our Role And Responsibility in Navigating Through COVID-19

https://stories.starbucks.ca/en-ca/stories/2020/our-role-and-responsibility-navigating-through-covid-19/

A letter to our Starbucks partners, customers and all stakeholders:

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At Starbucks, we live our mission of inspiring and nurturing the human spirit every day through the convening power of coffee.&nbsp;As ceo, I am joined by a leadership team privileged to steward&nbsp;our company into the future, staying true to this enduring&nbsp;mission, sharing success with our partners and leading with environmental consciousness.&nbsp;As we approach the 50th anniversary of&nbsp;Starbucks in 2021, we&nbsp;look ahead with a heightened sense of urgency and&nbsp;conviction&nbsp;that we must challenge ourselves, think bigger and do much more in partnership with others to take care of the planet we share.&nbsp;Today,&nbsp;I’m excited to be able to share with you&nbsp;our commitment&nbsp;to pursue&nbsp;a bold, multi-decade aspiration to become resource positive and give more than we take from the planet. This is an aspiration that we take on recognizing it will come with challenges and will require transformational change. Like most things that are worthwhile, this will not be easy. It will require all of us to play a role, and so we invite you to join us.

As many of you know, sustainability has been at&nbsp;Starbucks&nbsp;core since the beginning&nbsp;and consistent with our belief that we can build a great business that scales for good.&nbsp; And for many of us, its personal. Every day,&nbsp;our partners bring a sense of community and connection to our customers around the world.&nbsp;And every day, partners and customers take pride in our ethical and sustainable sourcing standards for coffee and our longtime support for coffee communities. 

We know that leadership in sustainability takes&nbsp;commitment, investment, innovation, partnership and, yes, time.&nbsp; It took nearly two decades of dedicated effort in partnership with Conservation International to achieve the milestone of sourcing 99 percent of our coffee ethically through&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/community/farmer-support/farmer-loan-programs" target="_blank">C.A.F.E. (Coffee and Farmer Equity)&nbsp;practices</a>. Our environmental footprint research shows that by implementing these standards,&nbsp;we have more than halved what our coffee’s carbon footprint would have been otherwise.

Becoming a leader in <a href="https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/environment/leed-certified-stores" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">L.E.E.D.&nbsp;(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)</a> stores took partnering with experts at the U.S.&nbsp;Green Building&nbsp;Council&nbsp;and a commitment&nbsp;to bring sustainable practices to scale.&nbsp;

Along the way, we have shared&nbsp;with&nbsp;the world&nbsp;what we&nbsp;have&nbsp;learned&nbsp;through open-source agronomy,&nbsp;farmer support centers&nbsp;and&nbsp;industry consortiums.&nbsp;Since 2001,&nbsp;we’ve published an annual&nbsp;<a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/2018-starbucks-global-social-impact-report/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">Global Social Impact Report</a>&nbsp;– one of the longest-running and most transparent reporting commitments of any public company. These annual reports not only highlight our progress but also reinforce our accountability for goals and aspirations which evolve with new information, innovation, and&nbsp;important lessons&nbsp;when we fall short. For example, we established reusability and recycling goals in 2008 that&nbsp;were&nbsp;unprecedented for our industry&nbsp;but also largely dependent on radical changes in customer behavior. What we learned was that, absent the same rigorous analysis, partnerships and investments that made us leaders in sustainable coffee and green building, our results underperformed our high expectations and underscored the need for a different approach.

Today,&nbsp;more than ever, the world needs leadership in environmental sustainability.&nbsp;We agree with the consensus of scientific experts who note that without drastic action from everyone – governments, companies and all of us as individuals – adapting to the impact of climate change in the future will be far more difficult and costly, taking a toll on our supply chains, our business, and more importantly, the lives of everyone involved, including coffee farmers, our suppliers, Starbucks partners, customers and every community we serve.&nbsp;

Now, it’s time to create a new, bold, broad aspiration –&nbsp;and it’s work that will require visionary thinking, new ways of working, investment of&nbsp;resource&nbsp;and urgent action. In that sense, I see today as a milestone for our business as we declare our concern about our planet’s future and commit to do more. 

Our&nbsp;aspiration&nbsp;is to become resource positive – storing more carbon than we emit, eliminating waste, and providing&nbsp;more clean freshwater than we use.&nbsp;This aspiration is grounded in Starbucks mission. By embracing&nbsp;a longer-term economic, equitable and&nbsp;planetary&nbsp;value proposition for&nbsp;our company,&nbsp;we&nbsp;will create greater value&nbsp;for all stakeholders.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Recently,&nbsp;we worked&nbsp;with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Quantis to quantify the carbon, waste and water footprint of our operations and supply chain across the globe. This was the first time we had conducted that footprint assessment&nbsp;for all three of those areas,&nbsp;globally.

These benchmarks&nbsp;provided&nbsp;a&nbsp;clear&nbsp;starting point, which&nbsp;led us to define&nbsp;five&nbsp;environmental strategies that will begin to move us&nbsp;toward a resource-positive future:

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While&nbsp;we’re&nbsp;confident these strategies&nbsp;are&nbsp;directionally&nbsp;right, our&nbsp;eyes&nbsp;are&nbsp;wide open&nbsp;knowing that&nbsp;we do not have all the answers or&nbsp;fully understand&nbsp;all&nbsp;the complexities and potential consequences.&nbsp;We&nbsp;do&nbsp;know&nbsp;that this journey will require&nbsp;new innovations and&nbsp;creative&nbsp;ideas from entrepreneurs, non-profits, our suppliers, our licensees, our partners and our customers.&nbsp;We will&nbsp;also&nbsp;be working in concert with&nbsp;widely&nbsp;accepted Science-Based Target initiative to help track our progress in conjunction with other companies.

As we&nbsp;move forward,&nbsp;we will be transparent in&nbsp;reporting&nbsp;short- and long-term&nbsp;progress against our&nbsp;goals.&nbsp;We’re starting by&nbsp;setting&nbsp;three&nbsp;preliminary targets&nbsp;for 2030 that will be the focus of our research and operational plans over this next year:

On Starbucks 50th&nbsp;anniversary in 2021, we will formalize our 2030 environmental goals based on what we have learned&nbsp;between now and then. Specifically, this year we will conduct comprehensive market research and trials to better understand consumer behavior and incentives to encourage consumer use of reusable containers. Working in collaboration with experts and advocates, this research will help inform aspirational and attainable reusability goals in various markets and globally by next year.&nbsp;&nbsp;

For all of us as stakeholders, I want to reemphasize that the journey we undertake is not only the right one for Starbucks&nbsp;responsibility as a corporate citizen of the world&nbsp;but&nbsp;is&nbsp;also&nbsp;fundamental to our brand relevance and, therefore, our overall business results.&nbsp;As such,&nbsp;we&nbsp;remain committed to our long-term, double-digit EPS growth model and&nbsp;will continue to&nbsp;deliver targeted financial results by&nbsp;prioritizing the right investments across our partners, customers and planet in support of our “Growth at Scale” agenda.

Today is a milestone&nbsp;for our business as we declare our concern for our planet’s future and commit to do more.&nbsp;I invite you to join us.

Kevin Johnson ceo,&nbsp;Starbucks&nbsp;Coffee Company

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Learn more about our sustainability initiatives:

An aerial shot of the Starbucks logo made of greenery

Starbucks ceo Kevin Johnson announced Tuesday a renewed focus on sustainability, all with an eye toward someday “giving more than we take from the planet.”

Starbucks Commits to a Resource-Positive Future, Giving More Than It Takes from the Planet

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https://stories.starbucks.ca/en-ca/stories/2020/kevin-johnson-letter-sustainability/

Starbucks CEO

Photos: Laxman Narasimhan’s immersive training – from Starbucks barista to ceo

Letter to Customers: Our Role And Responsibility in Navigating Through COVID-19

Starbucks Commits to a Resource-Positive Future, Giving More Than It Takes from the Planet