Re: “Starbucks announces new CEO to replace Howard Schultz” [Sept. 1, Business]:
As a shareholder and ex-corporate employee of Starbucks, I wish the new CEO well. The reality is he has no affiliation with any stakeholder, the primary reason the board jettisoned the existing, experienced and tenured executive leadership.
Oddly enough, none of those seasoned, educated and valued professionals were worthy of leading Starbucks through the 2020s. That speaks volumes to the leadership of the board.
The board has no solution as to the unionization surge, nor will the new CEO. Unionization is generational and societal, and as much as Starbucks embraces its “lens of humanity” approach to all “opportunities,” its actions reek of hypocrisy.
Corporate “partners” who hang on the new CEO by the end of the first quarter of 2023 can expect to have attrition and reduction in force impacting 10% to 15% of them.
Jess Gobel, Shoreline