What We Know About Soon-To-Be Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson

Kevin Johnson, currently chief operating officer at the company, is set to take over the reins of the company on April 3, 2017. Analysts anticipate the transition to be smooth, as Johnson has been a board member for the past seven years and has been running the global business of the company alongside Schultz.

Benzinga has profiled Johnson, the CEO-designate, for our readers:

• Appointed as president and COO of Starbucks in March 2015 after being a board member since 2009. In that capacity, he headed the company's global operating businesses, across the Americas, EMEA and China/Asia Pacific, as well as the company's supply chain, IT and mobile and digital platforms. Johnson took over from the then COO Troy Alstead, who wished to take a sabbatical to spend more time with family.
• Johnson was appointed CEO of Juniper Networks, Inc. JNPR in September 2008. The announcement of his retirement in July 2013 took everyone by surprise, as the company had thrived during his five-year tenure, capitalizing on huge spending by telecom companies. He officially relinquished the CEO position at Juniper in January 2014.
• Prior to that, Johnson was employed at Microsoft Corporation MSFT for 18 years in varied capacities. When he left the software giant, Johnson was leading the platforms and services division, where he was responsible for Windows and online services businesses. Before that, he served as group vice president of Microsoft's worldwide sales, marketing and services and also oversaw corporate operations and IT functions that supported the work of Microsoft employees worldwide.
• A noteworthy development when Johnson was at Microsoft was its failed attempt to buy Yahoo! Inc. YHOO way back in 2008. In a memo explaining the botched deal, Johnson, who was helming Windows Live, said the failure to reach an accord regarding the price by the end of the April deadline had led to the withdrawal of the offer.
• Johnson has also served in International Business Machines Corp. IBM systems integration and consulting business.

Johnson And Starbucks

Johnson, being a 30-year veteran in the technology industry, proved to be an asset for the coffee chain retailer in its pursuit of digital initiatives such as smartphone ordering and mobile coffee delivery. In a senior leadership announced in July this year with focus on its long-term strategy and innovation efforts, Johnson was assigned leadership of the Starbucks senior leadership team. This rejig followed the revenue miss in its second quarter.

At last check, Starbucks was up 1 percent to $57.78 after it dropped 2.22 percent on Friday on the announcement of the leadership transition.