The former Chipotle executive will be reunited with former boss Brian Niccol who became Starbucks CEO two months ago with a pledge to improve customer experience
Lieberman will join the US coffee giant on 4 November 2024 | Photo credit: Sebastián Santacruz
Starbucks has appointed former Chipotle and Yahoo marketing executive Tressie Lieberman as its first Global Chief Brand Officer.
Lieberman will join the US coffee giant on 4 November 2024 and oversee marketing, product, digital, creative and data analytics and reporting to CEO Brian Niccol.
“Starbucks is a brand people love. It’s time to tell our story again and reintroduce Starbucks to the world. Tressie is the perfect person to help us do that. She has a proven track record of building strong brands, developing compelling products, creating great customer experiences, and leading breakthrough marketing,” Niccol said in a statement on 18 October 2024.
Seattle-based Starbucks axed its Chief Marketing Officer position in April 2024 when incumbent Brady Brewer assumed the role of Starbucks International CEO with responsibility for company-operated and licensed operations across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Japan and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
In a letter to Starbucks’ employees, customers and stakeholders on 10 September 2024, Niccol said the Global Chief Brand Officer position would be key to ‘refocusing on what makes Starbucks special’.
Following a period of disappointing sales, Niccol is seeking to reestablish Starbucks as ‘the community coffeehouse’ by elevating the in-store experience for consumers and reminding customers of its ‘unmatched coffee expertise’.
Lieberman will join Starbucks after serving just over 12 months as Chief Marketing Officer at US web services provider Yahoo. The move sees her reunite with Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol, for whom she served as Vice President of Digital Marketing at Chipotle between May 2018 and June 2023.
Lieberman has also held previous senior marketing and digital positions at Taco Bell, also alongside Niccol, Snap Kitchen and Pizza Hut.
Niccol has been reshuffling Starbucks’ executive leadership team since taking the helm of the world’s largest coffee chain in September 2024.
A week after Niccol joined as CEO, Starbucks’ North America CEO Michael Conway announced he was retiring after 11 years with the Seattle-based coffee chain – but only five months in his latest position.
Later the same month, Starbucks handed Molly Liu sole leadership of its China operations, with long-serving Belinda Wong stepping down from the co-CEO role on 30 September 2024. China is Starbucks’ second largest market with more than 7,300 stores. However, the coffee chain is unlikely to reach its stated goal of 9,000-stores by 2025 after successive sales declines and increased value-focused competition.
Starbucks has posted three consecutive quarters of like-for-like sales declines in the US amid reduced discretionary spend among price-sensitive consumers and greater competition from value-focused operators. The US coffee giant will report its full-year sales on 30 October 2024.