Starbucks has appointed Indian-origin technology executive Anand Varadarajan as its new executive vice president and chief technology officer, effective January 19.
Varadarajan will join Starbucks’ Executive Leadership Team and report directly to chief executive officer Brian Niccol. He succeeds Deb Hall Lefevre, who retired from the role in September. Ningyu Chen has been serving as interim CTO during the transition.
Varadarajan joins Starbucks from Amazon, where he spent nearly 19 years in a range of senior technology leadership roles. Most recently, he led technology and supply chain systems for Amazon’s Worldwide Grocery Stores business.
During his tenure at Amazon, he worked on building large-scale, customer-focused technology platforms designed to improve speed, reliability, security, and operational efficiency. Earlier in his career, he held software engineering roles at Oracle and worked with several startups.
In his new role, Varadarajan will lead the Starbucks Technology organisation, overseeing systems that support the company’s global operations, digital platforms, and customer and partner experiences.
Varadarajan holds an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology and has earned two master’s degrees—one in civil engineering from Purdue University and another in computer science from the University of Washington.
