Anand Varadarajan, Amazon’s vice president of products and technology and worldwide grocery, speaks at the Delivering the future conference in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, on October 9, 2024.
Seth Herald | AFP | Getty Images
starbucks The company announced Friday that it has hired Amazon veteran Anand Varadarajan as its new chief technology officer.
Varadarajan spent nearly 19 years at Amazon, most recently leading technology and supply chain for the tech giant’s global grocery operations.
Varadarajan, who also previously held software engineering positions at Oracle, will take over as executive vice president and CTO starting January 19, reporting to CEO Brian Nicol, according to the memo. The hires come after former Starbucks CTO Deb Hall Lefebvre stepped down in September as the company underwent a second round of layoffs and announced a $1 billion restructuring plan as part of its ongoing turnaround.
“(Vardarajan) knows how to build reliable and secure systems, drive operational excellence, and scale customer-centric solutions. Equally important, he cares deeply about supporting and developing the people behind the scenes who build and enable the technology we use,” Nicol wrote in a memo announcing the hire.
At Amazon, Varadarajan was recently promoted to oversee the company’s global grocery technology and supply chain organization, which includes the company’s Fresh brands and Whole Foods. He reported directly to Jason Buechel, head of Amazon’s grocery division and CEO of Whole Foods.
During his tenure, Amazon has experimented with further grocery innovations, including a pilot that brought mini-robot warehouses to Whole Foods supermarkets. This will allow consumers to purchase both the in-store selection and products from Amazon’s extensive inventory not typically stocked at organic grocery stores.
Meanwhile, Starbucks is in the early stages of a turnaround overseen by Nicol, who took over as CEO in September 2024. In the most recent quarter, Starbucks’ quarterly same-store sales returned to growth for the first time in nearly two years, showing that the company’s strategy is winning over disengaged customers. Holiday sales have been strong so far this season as the company battles an ongoing strike by unionized baristas that is affecting a small number of its stores.
Part of that strategy is Green Apron Service, a hospitality platform that represents the company’s largest investment in its workforce at $500 million. The program is supported by changes to ensure adequate staffing and better technology to reduce service times. This was born out of the 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
