It’s probably the world’s best-known coffee chain but just over a year ago, business wasn’t doing well. Sales had slipped, customers were drifting away and the buzz had gone.
Newly-arrived CEO Brian Niccols was handed a tough task: stop the fall and make the coffee shops somewhere people wanted to return to.
In an interview with our North America business correspondent Michelle Fleury, he explains why customers are returning and seem to be giving the company another shot.
If you’d like to get in touch with the team, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.uk
Producers: John Mervin and Justin Bones
Business Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.
Each episode is a 17-minute deep dive into a single topic, featuring expert analysis and the people at the heart of the story.
Recent episodes explore the weight-loss drug revolution, the growth in AI, the cost of living, why bond markets are so powerful, China’s property bubble, and Gen Z’s experience of the current job market.
We also feature in-depth interviews with company founders and some of the world’s most prominent CEOs. These include the CEO of Google Sundar Pichai, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and billionaire founder Judy Faulkner of Epic Systems, one of the world’s largest medical record software providers.
(Picture: A customer holds a Starbucks cup outside one of the company’s coffee shops in San Francisco, California, US, on Tuesday, the 27th of January 2026. Starbucks Corp released its earnings figures on 28th of January, which revealed that the company had recorded its first sales growth at established stores in the US for two years. Credit: Getty Images)
