Starbucks Chooses New CEO
Listen to the article (Hong Kong accent)
Starbucks has chosen Laxman Narasimhan as the company’s next CEO.
Narasimhan will officially start as CEO in April next year, but will begin work at Starbucks on October 1 this year.
The company where Narasimhan last worked as CEO, The Reckitt Benckiser Group, announced that he would resign.
Narasimhan joins the company at a difficult moment.
In the United States, Starbucks is trying to stop workers from forming a union. In China, strict Covid-19 regulations are hurting the company’s business.
In Narasimhan’s first six months at Starbucks, he will work closely with Howard Schultz, current Starbucks CEO. He will also spend time with company leaders, employees, and customers.
Schultz has plans to “radically improve” the working conditions for employees and redesign stores. Starbucks has also closed some stores in the US for safety reasons.
Schultz recently said that Narasimhan is the right person for this job because he has experience building powerful consumer brands.
Reckitt Benckiser, Narasimhan’s previous workplace, is a British company with hygiene and health brands like Durex condoms, Lysol and Mucinex. He became CEO of the company in 2019.
Prior to joining Reckitt Benckiser, he had different jobs at PepsiCo.
Vocabulary14 words
- CEO
- Chief Executive officer; the top person in a large company
- Announce
- share information openly; to tell the public; to make a statement; to report
- Resign
- to leave a job; to step down; to quit; give up
- Form
- to bring different parts together to create something; to start; to set up; to launch
- Union (trade union)
- an organization that workers join for protection and support
- Strict
- severe; harsh; no flexibility; exact; strong
- Regulation
- a rule; guideline; law;
- spend time
- use your time for something; dedicate your time to something;
- Radical
- complete; major; total;
- Redesign
- design again in a different way; to make changes
- Consumer
- customer; user; shopper
- Brand
- the name of a company and its image; one product with a specific name made by one company, e.g., Sprite is one of Coca-Cola’s brands
- Hygiene
- actions and process to stay clean and healthy;
- Prior
- coming before in a timeline; previous; last; earlier; preceding
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