Starbucks appoints Anand Varadarajan as executive VP & chief technology officer

Starbucks has announced the appointment of Anand Varadarajan as executive vice president and chief technology officer, effective January 19. He will join the company’s Executive Leadership Team and lead the Starbucks Technology organisation, reporting directly to the chief executive officer.

Varadarajan joins Starbucks from Amazon, where he spent nearly 19 years in technology leadership roles. Most recently, he led technology and supply chain functions for Amazon’s Worldwide Grocery Stores business. His previous experience also includes software engineering roles at Oracle and work with several start-ups.

In his new role, Varadarajan will be responsible for overseeing Starbucks’ global technology strategy, systems and platforms, with a focus on reliability, security and operational scale.

He holds an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology and master’s degrees in civil engineering from Purdue University and computer science from the University of Washington.

The company also acknowledged Ningyu Chen for serving as interim CTO during the transition, and Cathy Smith for providing oversight and support to the technology organisation during this period.