What happened to the Indian CEO of Starbucks?
In August 2024, Starbucks announced that Narasimhan would leave the company effective immediately, and was replaced by Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol. In October 2025, he joined the board of directors at Pendulum Therapeutics, a microbiome science company. Starbucks hired a new CEO named Laxman Narasimhan, who had been a consultant at McKinsey for over 20 years. Consultants usually give companies advice they don’t actually run them.Brian Niccol. Brian R. Niccol (born 1974) is an American businessman and the chairman and chief executive officer of Starbucks, a role which he started on September 9, 2024, replacing Laxman Narasimhan. He previously was chairman and CEO of Chipotle until August 31, 2024.The company had a market capitalization of more than $96 billion in December 2025. The top individual shareholders of Starbucks are Brian Niccol, Brady Brewer, and Cathy Smith. The top institutional shareholders are Vanguard, Capital Research Global Investors, and BlackRock.
Why was Starbucks CEO fired?
The replacement of Laxman Narasimhan as Starbucks CEO is the result of growing dissatisfaction, particularly from activist investors, over the way the chain has been run, said Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData, in a statement. By mid-2024, investors had lost patience. Starbucks’ stock had fallen about 20% from its highs, same-store sales were stagnant, and analysts were writing that the brand had “lost its rhythm. Narasimhan’s cautious style and long-term focus didn’t match the urgency of the situation.This led to the surge of boycotting, causing Starbucks to lose $11 billion within a few weeks after Oct. Starbucks’ stock declined for 12 consecutive stock market sessions, the longest-ever recorded streak since the company went public in 1992.