Brian Niccol, Starbucks Chairman and CEO Leading the Back to Starbucks Turnaround

Brian Niccol is the chairman and chief executive officer of Starbucks, the Seattle coffee company with close to 41,000 stores around the world. He took both posts on September 9, 2024, after the board announced his appointment on August 13 of that year.

He arrived from Chipotle Mexican Grill, which he ran from 2018 to 2024, and before that he led Taco Bell. At Starbucks he is steering a turnaround plan called “Back to Starbucks”, and in late 2025 the company reported its first rise in global comparable store sales in seven quarters.

Education

Niccol studied at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree in 1996, according to the university’s business school.

He later completed an MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, which lists him among its alumni of the class of 2003.

Career

Niccol started out at Procter and Gamble, where he spent about ten years in a series of brand management posts. That early grounding in consumer brands shaped the marketing focus of his later jobs.

In late 2005 he moved to Pizza Hut, then a division of Yum! Brands, as vice president of strategy. He went on to serve for four years as the chain’s chief marketing officer, leading the brand strategy and positioning work.

His last post at Pizza Hut was general manager. In that job he was responsible for the brand and for an organisation of nearly 16,000 people working across more than 6,000 restaurants. Miami University’s profile also credits him with opening a digital and mobile ordering channel that generated more than half a billion dollars in sales.

In 2011 he crossed to Taco Bell, another Yum! Brands chain, as chief marketing and innovation officer. He became president of Taco Bell in 2013 and served as its chief executive officer from January 2015 to February 2018. Both chains had once belonged to PepsiCo, which spun off its restaurant business in 1997.

In 2018 Niccol became chief executive officer and a director of Chipotle Mexican Grill. The board added the title of chairman in March 2020, and he held both roles until he left for Starbucks in 2024.

Starbucks chose him in August 2024 to replace the previous chief executive. As part of the change, Mellody Hobson, who had chaired the Starbucks board, became lead independent director when he took over as chairman.

Current Roles

• Chairman of the board, Starbucks Corporation (since September 2024)
• Chief executive officer, Starbucks Corporation (since September 2024)
• Member of the board of directors, Walmart Inc.
• Member, Business Roundtable
• Member, Business Advisory Council of the Farmer School of Business, Miami University

Key Achievements

Growing Chipotle

During his time as chief executive, Chipotle more than doubled in size, according to the Starbucks proxy statement. The company’s own annual reports show how far the business moved between the year before he arrived and his last full year in charge.

• Revenue: $4.48 billion in 2017 and $11.3 billion in 2024
• Restaurants in the United States: 2,363 at the end of 2017 and 3,644 at the end of 2024
• International Chipotle restaurants: 37 at the end of 2017 and 82 at the end of 2024

Digital Ordering at Chipotle

Under Niccol, Chipotle leaned on its app, website and delivery partners, and it built drive-through lanes, called Chipotlanes, where guests collect orders placed online. Digital sales made up 35.1 percent of food and beverage revenue in 2024, according to the company’s annual report.

Launching “Back to Starbucks”

Starbucks announced the “Back to Starbucks” strategy in the fourth quarter of its 2024 fiscal year, weeks after he took over. The plan focuses on store staff, the customer experience, the coffeehouse as a community place, and the brand.

By the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 the company said its Green Apron Service model was running in all of its company-operated stores in the United States.

For the next stage, the fiscal 2025 annual report lists new food and beverage platforms, a reworked Starbucks Rewards programme, more support for licensed store partners and spending on the coffeehouse itself.

A Restructuring of the Store Base

On September 25, 2025, Starbucks announced a restructuring plan that included closing coffeehouses it judged unable to meet its standards. A total of 627 stores were closed under that plan in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, more than 90 percent of them in North America.

Return to Sales Growth

The company’s results for the quarter to September 28, 2025 showed global comparable store sales up 1 percent, the first increase in seven quarters. Quarterly revenue rose 5 percent to $9.6 billion. In November 2025 Starbucks also named Boyu Capital as its joint venture partner to grow the business in China.

The Company in Numbers

• Stores worldwide: 40,990 at the end of fiscal 2025 (September 28, 2025)
• Stores in the United States: 16,864; stores in China: 8,011 (end of fiscal 2025)
• Net revenue: $37.2 billion in fiscal 2025, up 3 percent
• Employees: about 381,000 worldwide as of September 28, 2025
• Markets: 89 (fiscal 2025 annual report)
• Earnings per share: $1.63 on a reported basis in fiscal 2025

Starbucks traces its roots to 1971, when its first shop opened in Seattle. The story of how the brand grew into a global chain is told in our profile of Howard Schultz, the businessman who built it up over several decades.

Outside Starbucks, Niccol sits on the board of Walmart Inc., the retail group founded by Sam Walton. He has previously served on the boards of the homebuilder KB Home and the motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson.

In Their Own Words

Speaking in the company’s results statement of October 29, 2025, Niccol said: “We’re a year into our ‘Back to Starbucks’ strategy, and it’s clear that our turnaround is taking hold.”

In the same release he added: “Our return to global comp growth and the momentum we’re building give me confidence we’re on the right path to deliver the very best of Starbucks for our customers, partners and shareholders.”

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