Starbucks has a new CEO. Brian Niccol took charge of one of the most renowned coffee chains in the world after its former boss Laxman Narasimhan's quick departure.
The All-Expensive Ride
The new CEO, however, appears to have made it to the headlines for the wrong reasons. Recently, it was reported that Niccol will not be relocating to the coffee company's main headquarters in Seatle. Instead, the new boss will be travelling all the way from his house in California, in the south-west of the United States, to Seatle in Washington, in the north-west of the United States.
Another detail that has emerged about Niccol's apparent 1,600-km-long journey. If you have ever lived in the city of Mumbai and paid exorbitant charges for a first-class ticket that bestows you with a cramped commute, then these numbers will make you think.
According to a digital entrepreneur on LinkedIn, the luxurious private jet is estimated to cost around USD 12,000 or a whopping Rs 10 lakh.
This to-and-from trip, if done on at least three days of the week, would end up costing the company about Rs 1.2 crore.
'This is Nuisance'
In the post, the digital entrepreneur further commented on the matter. He added, "- Starbucks must be up Starbucks Creek (I hope you got the pun) to accommodate this request and pay the astronomical sums this new hire has demanded."
He further went on to call the whole exercise a 'nuisance'. He added, "It's not the cost—it's just a nuisance! A CEO who is always in the air and not at HQ on all days tells me how desperate Starbucks is to hire someone who smells of resurrection!".
Starbucks headquarters in Seattle. |
He sighted another similar case, that of former Sony CEO Howard Stringer. He added, "The last case I remember was of Welsh/American Sony CEO Howard Stringer, who travelled frequently from the USA to Japan once a month. That didn't end well."
He concluded the post on LinkedIn by saying, "My Learnings: Paying attention to abnormal CEO perks tells you not so much about their supernatural qualities as about the horrific condition of the company that is the employer."
