Starbucks’s New Boss Gets an Unusual Perk: Remote Work
By Chip Cutter
Aug. 19, 2024 5:00 am ET
To woo its new CEO, Starbucks offered a $10 million cash signing bonus and millions more in stock-based compensation. The coffee giant also didn’t insist that he move to the company headquarters in Seattle.
Brian Niccol, the outgoing CEO of Chipotle, instead will be able to live in his home in Southern California and can commute to Starbucks’s head office on a corporate jet.
The arrangement thrusts Niccol into the relatively rare position in the U.S. of a super-commuting CEO, and it shows how determined Starbucks was to pursue him.
Most companies still prefer that their executives maintain a primary residence near a headquarters, corporate advisers say, though there have been some notable cases where a top leader lived and worked elsewhere.
Victoria’s Secret made a concession last week when it hired Hillary Super from Rihanna’s ling--ie brand to take over as its next chief executive. Super will be based at the retailer’s New York City offices, not at the company’s headquarters near Columbus, Ohio. Her employment agreement says Super will be required to frequently travel to Columbus, and her travel costs will be covered by Victoria’s Secret.
Former Boeing CEO David Calhoun started working from home when he took over just before the pandemic in 2020 and never relocated near its headquarters in Arlington, Va., The Wall Street Journal previously reported. He regularly commuted via Boeing’s private jet fleet from two homes—one in New Hampshire, the other in South Carolina—to Boeing headquarters and other offices.
Boeing has said that in a complicated, postpandemic work era, its executives must be on the road frequently as part of their jobs. The plane maker’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, will relocate to Seattle, where the company was founded and where it has its largest manufacturing operations.
Charlie Scharf stayed in New York when he took over as CEO of troubled Wells Fargo in 2019. Scharf told investors when he started that he would make frequent trips to San Francisco, where Wells Fargo was based, and Charlotte, N.C., where many of its employees work. He is now in his fifth year in the job.
When Lidiane Jones took the top job at the online-dating app Bumble, based in Austin, Texas, in January, her employment agreement specified that she would work remotely. Jones is based near Boston. She told the Journal earlier this year that the city provides time-zone advantages by allowing her to more easily communicate with employees in Bumble’s largest office, which is in London, and with colleagues in New York.
Starbucks said that Niccol will have his primary office in its Seattle headquarters, while spending time with employees and customers in its stores, facilities and offices around the world. The company characterized it as a hybrid position. He is expected to have a residence in Seattle.
In Niccol’s offer letter outlining his employment terms, Starbucks notes that after his start date the company will establish a small remote office in Newport Beach, Calif. It will employ an assistant of Niccol’s choosing and will pay to maintain that office.
After Niccol took on the top job in 2018 at Chipotle, he decided to relocate the company’s headquarters from Denver to Southern California, where he resided, in what he described as an attempt to give the brand a fresh start. Not all employees were offered chances to move. In a podcast released earlier this year, Niccol said explaining that to employees was a low point.
“One of the hardest meetings I had at Chipotle was when I had to stand up in front of the Denver office and let them know we’re closing the office, and not everybody was getting the opportunity to move with us,” Niccol said on the podcast with one of his old bosses, David Novak, the former CEO of Yum Brands.
While rank-and-file employees might not be able to demand such geographic flexibility, companies often make exceptions for senior-level employees as part of late-stage negotiations to hire someone in a key role, said Raheela Anwar, president and CEO of Group 360 Consulting, a corporate advisory firm.
Anwar said she has seen cases where a company initially defines its parameters for a job, including the location, but later adjusts to meet the preferences of its most-desired candidate. “The more senior the individual, the more gap there is between what a company initially said they wanted and what it looks like” in reality, she said.
She saw Niccol’s arrangement at Starbucks as an example of a company doing what was needed to snag a star executive, even if that meant operating differently than in the past. The ability of a CEO to use a corporate jet also means it is much easier for them to hop up to headquarters or to visit multiple offices in the same day, Anwar said.
“Brian is not taking the train from Newport or flying JetBlue,” she said. “He’s being picked up.”
Sometimes it is the headquarters that relocates. In 2022, billionaire Ken Griffin shifted his hedge fund Citadel from Chicago to Miami—where he also personally moved. He wrote to employees at the time that he viewed Florida as a better corporate environment; Citadel officials also said crime was a driving factor.
Newell Brands moved its headquarters in 2016 from Atlanta to Hoboken, N.J., saying it wanted to tap high-tech talent after a big merger. It also saved then-CEO Michael Polk, who lived in New Jersey, from a long commute. After Polk left in 2019, the company moved its headquarters back to Atlanta.