Starbucks reorganises business to drive growth
Starbucks says it plans to invest millions to grow its Seattle’s Best Coffee and Tazo tea brands as it announces a major overhaul of its global organisation.
The company wants to grow its Seattle’s Best Coffee brand into a $1bn (£600m)business and has appointed Jeff Hansberry, who is also president of Starbucks global consumer products and foodservice businesses, to lead it.
Starbucks hopes to tap into the $87bn (£54.6bn) global tea market and has appointed Annie Young-Scrivner as president of the Tazo brand to grow it into a “globally-recognised multi-billion dollar brand”.
The company has also restructured its global business around three regions to accelerate growth outside the US.
From September, the company will operate three distinct regions; China and Asia Pacific, Americas – including Canada, Mexico and Latin America and EMEA, which includes the UK.
It currently operates a US division and an international division, which includes 54 markets outside of the US.
The change is not thought to impact on the marketing function in the UK. Brian Waring will continue to lead marketing as vice-president of marketing and category for the UK & Ireland
Howard Schultz, chairman, president and CEO of Starbucks, says: “Our company performance over the past two years has positioned Starbucks for the significant international opportunities ahead and the acceleration of our global growth strategy.
“Today we are successfully executing our multi-brand, multi-channel strategy and we believe the leadership and organisational moves announced today will optimise our speed and focus going forward.”
Each region will be lead by a president who will take responsibility for building the brand and through the retail, food service and consumer products divisions.
Michelle Gass, who has held global strategy, marketing and category management roles in Starbucks for the past 15 years, will lead the EMEA region with responsibility for the UK business.
She will also be tasked with growing Starbucks in Europe, Russia and the Middle East.
John Culver will lead the China and Asia Pacific region, which includes India, China and Japan.
Cliff Burrows, currently president of the US will lead the Americas division.
