{"id":61244,"date":"2026-10-29T10:23:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T07:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesauditimes.net\/en\/?p=61244"},"modified":"2026-10-29T10:23:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T07:23:05","slug":"brian-niccol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesauditimes.net\/en\/brian-niccol\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Niccol, Starbucks Chairman and CEO Leading the Back to Starbucks Turnaround"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Niccol is the chairman and chief executive officer of Starbucks<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Education<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Career<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, which spun off its restaurant business in 1997.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Current Roles<\/h3>\n