Page 13 - The Starbucks Experience

Acknowledgments

Throughout this process, Chris teamed up with other
amazing Starbucks partners such as Kevin Carothers in Pub-
lic Affairs and Kelly Sheppard in Public Relations to bring
their talents and insights to this work. From the outset, Chris
worked closely with Lara Wyss in Media Relations. Lara,
along with Dub Hay, senior vice president of Coffee and
Global Procurement, and the entire team at the Starbucks
Farmers Support Center in Costa Rica, served as guide to my
Starbucks Experience on the mountainous coffee farms near
San José. Lara’s energy, warmth, and sense of humor have
been a consistent part of the researching and writing process.
From my perspective, if you want to know how Starbucks
became the international company it is today, you need only
meet Chris and Lara.
The bibliography of this book includes a comprehensive
xii list of the senior leaders at Starbucks who generously took
the time to meet with me. I thank each of them for sharing
their phenomenal insights on business success. A number of
Starbucks managers were particularly helpful in securing con-
tacts and stories for this book. While their own accounts may
not be included, their influence was significant. This group
includes Tesh Burke, Annette King, and Annette’s contacts at
the CUP (Caring Unites Partners) fund. The bibliography
does not include the names of literally hundreds of customers
and partners who have shared information. While space con-
siderations allowed only a subset of the stories I heard to be
included in the book, many powerful experiences remain to
be written about on another day.
Additionally, I’d like to thank all the CEOs and business
leaders who have allowed me to either coach them or pro-
vide significant consulting services or programs for their
organizations, not the least of which are Dwight Gaudet, Paul