Brian Niccol

• 1. Introduction

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  Brian Niccol, born in 1974, is the American executive whose hiring sent Starbucks shares up 24.5 percent on the 13th of August 2024. That was the day the company named him its incoming chairman and chief executive. The reaction came after a career spent at food brands, from Pringles to Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Chipotle. How does a young man who set out to study engineering end up as the person a coffee giant calls for a rescue? What did his earlier turnarounds involve, and what did they cost the people around him? And what happens when the executive hired to repair a company becomes a lightning rod himself?

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• 2. Detour From Engineering

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  Philadelphia is where Niccol comes from, and engineering is what he first planned to study at Miami University. A marketing class changed the plan. It piqued his interest enough that he began taking several elective courses in business. He also joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity there.

  In 1995, while still a student, he took a college internship at Procter & Gamble. He graduated from Miami University in 1996. Later he added an MBA from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.

  After graduation he began his career in brand management at the same company. He spent two years as the brand manager for ThermaCare, a heat-wrap product. In December 2002 he moved over to represent Pringles. That snack brand was the last packaged product on his record before the restaurant industry.

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• 3. Pizza Hut Experiments

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  In 2005, Yum! Brands hired Niccol as a vice-president of strategic marketing, and a study of fathers became his first notable project. The research identified fathers as an important customer segment. Acting on it helped lift sales at Pizza Hut and won the chain an additional point of market share. Two years later he was appointed Pizza Hut's chief marketing officer.

  The Great Recession was among his main challenges in that job, and digital tools were a large part of his answer. In January 2008, customers could place orders by text message or through the website. A year later Pizza Hut released an iPhone app. After two weeks it had been downloaded 100,000 times from the App Store. Within three months it had generated $1 million in sales. In October 2010, the chain announced a partnership with Foursquare to reward loyal customers with free breadsticks.

  Not every experiment worked. Through the first half of 2009, Pizza Hut tried a shortened logo reading simply "The Hut". The public reacted poorly, and the company retracted it. Niccol had argued that the shorter name "ties in nicely with today's texting generation". He said the company wanted to make the phrase "common vernacular" for Pizza Hut.

  Taco Bell would be his next stop, in October 2011.

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• 4. Taco Bell Turnaround

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  Millions of dollars had gone into fighting a class action lawsuit over the quality of Taco Bell's beef by the time Niccol arrived as chief marketing and innovation officer. The lawsuit was dismissed, yet sales still dropped 5% in the second quarter of 2011. The company attributed the drop to damaged consumer perceptions of its food. Sales had already stagnated before he joined.

  In January 2012, the brand introduced a breakfast menu. It also launched a more upscale line called Cantina Bell, built to compete with fast-casual restaurants. Those plans helped reverse the chain's fortunes, and the company posted an 8% increase in fiscal year 2012.

  On the 1st of January 2015, Niccol was promoted to chief executive officer of Taco Bell. He presented an ongoing plan to make the chain appealing to Millennials and the generations after them. His time as chief executive is described as a successful turnaround effort.

  Chipotle Mexican Grill, one of the fast-casual rivals Cantina Bell was built to challenge, would eventually become his employer.

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• 5. Chipotle's Recovery

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  Steve Ells, the founder of Chipotle, was the person Niccol replaced as chief executive in March 2018. The company he inherited had been hit by a string of food safety issues beginning in 2015, and customer trust had suffered. A new queso had also met with mixed reception. In June 2018, Chipotle announced it would close up to 65 locations that year.

  Another setback arrived in July 2018. An outbreak of Clostridium perfringens at a location in Ohio made over 600 people sick. In September, Niccol responded with a marketing campaign reminding customers of the restaurant's fresh ingredients and preparation. He credited those advertisements with helping to improve sales.

  Newport Beach, California, was where Niccol had moved to take the Taco Bell job. He did not move back east to Denver for Chipotle. Instead, the company moved its headquarters from Denver to Newport Beach.

  Under his leadership, Chipotle's revenue doubled and its profits increased almost seven times. The stock price rose by almost eight times. He also increased salaries for the retail staff and expanded employee benefits. His total compensation in 2023 was $22.5 million, which was 1,354 times the median employee pay at Chipotle that year.

  His tenure there ended on the 31st of August 2024, and a new job began on the 9th of September.

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• 6. Back to Starbucks

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  Mellody Hobson as chairman and Laxman Narasimhan as chief executive were the two Starbucks leaders whose roles Niccol took over. His package was large. It included a starting salary of $1.6 million and a $10 million starting bonus. Another $75 million came as equity grants designed to pay out over time. His annual cash incentive had a target of 225 percent of his base salary. Total compensation for 2024 reached $97.8 million, equal to 6,666 times the median employee pay at Starbucks.

  At the start of his tenure, Niccol developed and began carrying out a plan called "Back to Starbucks". It included the potential for doubling the company's store count in the United States. The plan was not cheap. In the fiscal second quarter, operating margin fell to 6.9% from 12.8% as spending swelled on the turnaround.

  Starbucks Center in Seattle is the headquarters Niccol refused to move. He declined to relocate it closer to his residence in Orange County, California. Investors were disappointed. They had hoped a move would revitalize the company by tapping the much larger Southern California talent market, as had happened at Chipotle.

  How he travels between his home and that Seattle headquarters became its own controversy.

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• 7. Labor and Criticism

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  Augusta, Maine, was the site of a Chipotle store closed in 2022 under Niccol's leadership. Employees there had tried to make it the company's first unionized location. The workers filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. The board ruled that the closure was an illegal act of union-busting.

  A workers' strike at Starbucks in 2025 began during his time as chief executive. It arose amid claims of unfair labor practices and stalled contract negotiations.

  A jet commute of roughly 1,000 miles drew criticism in 2024. As the newly appointed chief executive, Niccol was reported to be using the company-owned jet to travel from his residence in Newport Beach to Seattle. He was expected to work in person there at least three times a week. At the time, Starbucks was cutting commuting benefits for store employees. Environmentalists raised concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful environmental effects.

  Away from these disputes, Niccol has collected board seats and honors across several industries.

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• 8. Boards and Honors

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  Walmart and Starbucks are the two companies whose boards of directors Niccol currently sits on. Before that he served on the boards of Chipotle Mexican Grill, KB Home and Harley-Davidson. He was also a member of the Board of Governors for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

  In 2019, he appeared on The Bloomberg 50 and was named to Fortune's Businessperson of the Year recognition. The University of Chicago's Booth School of Business placed him on its Distinguished Alumni list in 2020. In 2021, EatingWell included him on its American Food Heroes list.

  Niccol is married to Jennifer, and the couple have three children. At Starbucks, the job is still being written, and he holds it alongside his Walmart board seat.

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