Brian Niccol has toolkit to push Starbucks into 'rebound era'

Starbucks (SBUX) stock is skyrocketing Tuesday morning after a C-suite shakeup that has CEO Laxman Narasimhan stepping down with Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) chief executive Brian Niccol to take up the new leadership mantle starting Monday, September 9. Inversely, Chipotle shares are falling on this news.

Wedbush Securities managing director Nick Setyan and AB Bernstein senior analyst Danilo Gargiulo sit down with Seana Smith and Madison Mills to talk about what Niccol can bring to Starbucks in his new leadership role.

"[Niccol's] challenge here is to basically go after a new customer. And at the time, Chipotle had never done any kind of marketing, never any kind of menu innovation," Setyan says. "He brought in a lot of that because of his marketing background. And here I'm just not sure what he's going to be able to bring to the table at Starbucks. I mean, given the decades of experience around menu innovation, the digital, obviously, a game here. And again, unless he has the power to change macro headwinds to bring the lower income customer back to Starbucks, I'm just not sure what the game plan can be."

Gargiulo anticipates Niccol to utilize his "toolkit" he used to raise Chipotle's visibility that could contribute to leading Starbucks into its "rebound era."

"Brian has navigated some pressures that are very similar to when he was at Chipotle that are very similar to the ones that we are seeing today at Starbucks," Gargiulo elaborates, adding: "Thinking through the improved mobile ordering experiences, creating some digital lanes to increase the off-premise demand, which is part of the reasons why Starbucks today cannot serve its customer base."

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This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

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