Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to step down in 2017


Howard Schultz, the chairman and CEO of Starbucks, is stepping down from the role, effective April 3, 2017.
He will become executive chairman of the company, with current COO Kevin Johnson slated to be the next CEO. Schultz has seen Starbucks grow exponentially — when he joined the company in 1982 as its director of operations and marketing, Starbucks had just four stores. Johnson joined the Starbucks board of directors in 2009, and became COO in 2015; previously, he was CEO of Juniper Networks and president of the platforms division at Microsoft. When the news came out on Thursday, Starbucks shares dropped about 4 percent in after hours trading, CNBC reports.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
Scorching hot sauces that pack a punch
The Week Recommends The best sauces to tingle your lips and add a fiery kick to your food
-
Syria’s strange post-Assad election
The Explainer Sunday’s limited vote ‘suited the phase Syria is undergoing’, says interim president
-
Why did the China spying case collapse?
Today’s Big Question Unwillingness to call China an ‘enemy’ apparently scuppered espionage trial
-
Electronic Arts to go private in record $55B deal
speed read The video game giant is behind ‘The Sims’ and ‘Madden NFL’
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fine
Speed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in Intel
Speed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to China
Speed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with Disney
Speed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B deal
Speed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance merger
Speed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profits
Speed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits