Starbucks hires new CTO from Amazon Grocery
Anand Varadarajan, Amazon’s VP of product and technology and worldwide grocery stores, will be speaking on October 9, 2024 at Mt. Juliet speaks at the Delivering the Future conference in Tennessee.
Seth Herald | Afp | Getty Images
Starbucks It has hired Amazon veteran Anand Varadarajan as its new chief technology officer, it announced Friday.
Varadarajan spent nearly 19 years at Amazon, most recently leading technology and supply chain for the tech giant’s worldwide grocery business.
Varadarajan, who previously held software engineering roles at Oracle, will begin as vice president and CTO on Jan. 19 and report directly to CEO Brian Niccol, according to a statement. The hiring follows the departure of Starbucks’ former CTO Deb Hall Lefevre in September as the company faced a second round of layoffs and announced a $1 billion restructuring plan as part of its ongoing transformation.
“[Varadarajan] He knows how to build reliable and secure systems, drive operational excellence, and scale solutions that keep customers at the center. Just as importantly, he cares deeply about supporting and developing the people behind the scenes who develop and enable the technology we use,” Niccol wrote in a note announcing his hire.
At Amazon, Varadarajan was recently elevated to oversee worldwide grocery technology and supply chain organizations that include both the homegrown Fresh brand and Whole Foods. He reported directly to Jason Buechel, Amazon’s grocery chief and CEO of Whole Foods.
During his tenure, Amazon has further experimented with grocery tech innovations, such as a pilot to introduce mini robotic warehouses into Whole Foods supermarkets that allow consumers to shop both in-store selections and items from Amazon’s larger inventory not typically stocked by organic grocers.
Starbucks, meanwhile, is still in the early stages of a transformation overseen by Niccol, who takes over as CEO in September 2024. In the latest quarter, Starbucks’ quarterly same-store sales returned to growth for the first time in nearly two years; This is a sign that his strategy is to win over old customers. Holiday sales have also been strong so far this season as the company deals with an ongoing strike by unionized baristas that affects a small number of its stores.
Part of that strategy is hospitality platform Green Apron Service, which at $500 million is the company’s largest investment in its workforce. The program is supported by changes to ensure appropriate staffing and better technology to keep service times faster. This was born from growth in digital orders, which now account for more than 30% of sales, and feedback from baristas.
— CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this report
