Starbucks’ new CFO is a longtime customer with a company turnaround on her agenda
Good morning. Starbucks has scored big by hiring Cathy Smith, a CFO with extensive experience, who now has a vital role in bringing the company back to its former glory.
Smith recently began her tenure at Starbucks, coming from her role at Nordstrom as finance chief, after working for health insurer Bright Health Group as CFO and chief administrative officer, which has since rebranded as NeueHealth. Smith previously served as CFO of retailers Target, Walmart International, and GameStop.
A new Fortune article by my colleague Phil Wahba delves into how Smith plans to help transform the coffee shop chain of which she’s been a longtime customer.
“I can’t tell you how many decades Starbucks has been like my personal third place,” Smith tells Wahba. “I knew I could go into a Starbucks, grab a great cup of coffee, sit down at a table, and do whatever I needed to.” Her go-to drink is an Americano with a splash of 2% milk, she says.
Smith saw a “drift” away in recent years from what had made Starbucks a cultural phenomenon: problems such as less dependable service at stores, or an environment that made its cafés less of an inviting “third place” beyond work and home, Wahba writes. “I had started to miss that great coffeehouse experience,” Smith says.
Smith intends to help Starbucks shake off a long slump, with four straight quarters of same-store sales declines. Its shares have fallen 34% since their all-time high. And it has a much weaker hold on customers. Since his appointment last summer, CEO Brian Niccol, formerly chief executive of Chipotle, is trying to reinvigorate a brand "whose bloated menu, often chaotic in-store service, and frequent forays in the culture wars have cost its customers," Wahba writes.
To find out how Smith intends to use her years of experience to position Starbucks for growth, you can read the article here.
Like Starbucks, companies are vying for top CFOs as the demand is outpacing supply. At the same time, the job of CFO is becoming more complex, Jenna Fisher, co-head of Russell Reynolds Associates’ (RRA) global financial officers practice, recently told me. The broadening of the position now can mean taking on an additional role like chief operating officer or having the IT team report to the CFO for example.
That’s part of why many companies want finance chiefs who have vast experience. In 2024, 40% of global CFO appointments were experienced CFOs—the highest percentage in six years, according to RRA.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com