Kevin Johnson

Kevin Johnson is a board member at Goldman Sachs and a veteran technology and consumer industry leader with more than four decades of experience scaling global businesses. He is best known for serving as president and chief executive officer of Starbucks for more than five years, where he led a workforce of more than 400,000 partners worldwide.

Johnson guided Starbucks through a period of record growth by advancing beverage innovation, expanding digital customer engagement to 45 million users and increasing the company’s global footprint to 35,000 stores. He also stewarded the company through the COVID-19 pandemic, providing economic certainty for employees and extending free coffee to frontline healthcare workers and first responders. As the business recovered, he oversaw record investments in wages, training and benefits for Starbucks partners.

Johnson first joined Starbucks in 2009 as a member of its board of directors, later becoming chief operating officer before being named CEO in 2017. Prior to Starbucks, he spent 16 years at Microsoft and served as CEO of Juniper Networks for five years. He also served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama on the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.

Since retiring from operating roles in 2022, Johnson has focused on mentoring the next generation of leaders. He sits on the boards of Goldman Sachs, Twin Health and Amperity.