Starbucks became a global brand as strong as the likes of McDonalds, Coke, Pepsi, Google, Apple, and Levi Strauss in a record time—but its value as an enterprise has been plummeting in recent years. So, the man who built the brand, Howard Schultz, intervened even though he no longer held any official position in management or on the board. Schultz remains the largest shareholder—and he just helped drive out his fourth attempted successor, Laxman Narasimhan.
A week earlier, Schultz’s former lead director and close friend, Mike Ullman, the former CEO of JC Penney, passed away. Schultz privately met with Brian Nicoll, the CEO of Chipotle who was just named the fifth successor to Schultz. The market reaction drove the stock up 25%– the greatest surge in value in the company’s history.
