Howard
Schultz is chairman and CEO of an extremely
successful
coffee company known as Starbucks.
He has always believed that ‘You cannot not inspire anyone, unless you are
inspired yourself’.
Howard Schultz was born in New
York in 1953, his family moved into the Bay view Housing project in Canarsie.
Schultz left Canarsie to attend Northern Michigan University for his bachelor’s
degree in communication and started working as a appliance sales man for Hammerplast,
a company selling European coffee maker in United States.
By the early 1980s, Howard Schultz had become
a sales director and saw that more coffee being sold to a small operation in Seattle,
Washington known then as Starbucks Coffee and Spice Company than to Macy’s.In
the year 1981, he walked into original Starbucks for the first time which was
found by three friends in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker. The
product spoke to him and he believed that he had found what he had been
searching for the whole career. In 1982 Schultz was hired as a director of
retail operation and marketing
for Starbucks, which use to sell coffee beans at that time.
In 1983 Howard Schultz visited a
number of coffee bars while traveling to Milan, itlay.The experience inspired
him to expand Starbucks’ products to include drinks instead of just beans.
However he realized that the owner were not interested in making it big, he
quit Starbucks to establish his own coffee chain called Il Giornale. With the
help of investors Schultz purchased Starbucks merging Il Giornale with the
Seattle Company.
Starbucks opened its first store in New
York City. It quickly grew to 240 outlets nationwide, and aimed to
expand to 1500 national stores by the year 2000.
Schultz publicly announced that he is
resigning as Starbucks CEO but would remain chairman. He suggested that his new
role would be to create global strategy for the company. Starbucks entered into
direct competition with fast food chain by offering breakfast. Howard Schultz
was ranked number 359 in the Forbes
400 list.
Schultz made headlines and won wide
praise after making a statement in support of legalization of gay marriage.
After shareholders expressed his disapproval, he stated that not every decision
is a economic decision.
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