Howard Schultz

Howard D. Schultz (born July 19, 1953) is an American businessman and author who was the chairman and chief executive officer of Starbucks from 1986 to 2000, from 2008 to 2017, and interim CEO from 2022 to 2023.

Howard D. Schultz was born on July 19, 1953, to Ashkenazi Jewish parents, Fred and Elaine Schultz, in Brooklyn, New York.

Fred Schultz was a truck driver.

Howard has two siblings.

Schultz grew up in the Canarsie public housing projects.

According to Schultz, his family was poor, although childhood contemporaries recount a middle-class upbringing.

Schultz spent his time after school at the Boys Club of New York.

He is active in the Boys’ Club of New York's Alumni.

Schultz graduated from Canarsie High School in 1971.

He attended Northern Michigan University (NMU) from 1971 to 1975, where he was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, graduating with a B.A. in communications.

In 1976, he became a salesman for Xerox in New York.

In 1979, he was recruited by French private equity firm PAI Partners in 1979 to be general manager of a Swedish kitchenware manufacturer‘s U.S. subsidiary, Hammarplast.

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.

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 to fill their plastic cone filter orders.

Schultz began working at Starbucks in 1982.

In 1982, at age 29, Schultz was hired at Starbucks as the director of retail operations and marketing.

Schultz was exposed to coffee in Italy on a buying trip to Milan, Italy in 1983.

On his return, he worked to persuade company owners Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker to offer traditional espresso beverages in addition to the whole bean coffee, leaf teas, and spices.

After a successful pilot of the cafe concept, Baldwin and Bowker were intrigued but, noting the high cost of espresso machines, the relative paucity of expertise for maintenance and repair of the machines in America, and Americans' lack of familiarity with the drink, they decided not to deploy Schultz's idea further and he stepped down from Starbucks to start his own business.

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.

Due to the rapid expansion of Starbucks under Schultz’s leadership, he has been described as the “Ray Kroc of his generation”.

Schultz owned the Seattle SuperSonics basketball team from 2001 to 2006.

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 with reconciling the country's tea-culture with coffee consumption in China.

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 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 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 CEO Kevin Johnson was retiring and that Howard Schultz would take over as interim CEO until Laxman Narasimhan took over as CEO in April 2023.

On March 20, 2023, Schultz announced that he would be stepping down early from the position.