Word: schultze
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Eventually, though, Starbucks had to grow up and get professional managers. In 2000 Orin Smith ascended from president to CEO; Schultz stayed on as chairman of the board. During Smith's five-year tenure, Starbucks maintained its mind-blowing growth, but at the same time, it introduced sophisticated testing and R&D and took steps to boost efficiency and sales, like installing automated Verismo espresso machines. By no longer having to scoop and tamp coffee for each shot, baristas could make a drink 40% faster, moving customers through lines more quickly. Drive-throughs became standard, and the company released...
Tensions over what Starbucks was becoming--cluttered, corporate, soulless--were rising within the company even before the Valentine's Day memo. "These were real conversations we were having," says Michelle Gass, whom Schultz promoted in January to head of global strategy. "A lot of last year was figuring out what really matters to our customers...
...board reinstated Schultz as CEO to revive the coffee empire. "It's a time for reinvention, and there's no one better to do it than Howard," says Howard Behar, who ran Starbucks' international operations throughout the late 1990s and as a board member voted to reinstall Schultz. The stock rallied 8%, and baristas went wild. "Woooohooooo!" read two posts on StarbucksGossip.com "Welcome back, Howie!!! All of Starbucks missed you, and we can't wait to see where you take us," read another. More than a few posts skeptically pointed out that Schultz had never gone far (his office...
...Schultz is no less messianic. "I came back because it's personal," he says. "I came back because I love this company and our people and feel a deep sense of responsibility to 200,000 people and their families." On the afternoon of Jan. 7, he gathered the 4,000-some people who work at Starbucks headquarters. "I said, 'We need everyone in this room to believe in the mission of the company, and if you don't, there's nothing wrong, but you shouldn't be here,'" Schultz recalls...
...just Schultz who's back. It was as if he were reassembling the band: Roberts, the merchandising guru; Wanda Herndon, who left in 2006 but returned to run global communications; and Arthur Rubinfeld, the company's first vice president for store development, who has known Schultz since the two were in their 20s. Schultz holed up with them and others he'd promoted from within at the Palace Ballroom in downtown Seattle for three days of 14-hour strategy sessions. The retreat started by listening to Beatles music and talking about how great icons reinvent themselves...