A marketing vice president at Starbucks Corp. is leaving the company, continuing an exodus of executives since Howard Schultz returned to the helm.
Jen Quotson, vice president of creative studios at Starbucks, is departing the coffee chain after 14 years. She spent more than eight years in her most recent role, according to her LinkedIn profile. A company spokesperson confirmed the move, and said the company will immediately begin an internal and external search to fill the role.
“Jen’s leadership and stewardship of the Studio is inseparable from how brilliantly Starbucks shows up across the world,” chief marketing officer Brady Brewer said in an internal letter to company employees.
Starbucks has seen a wave of departures amid a C-suite shake-up and company overhaul that followed Schultz’s return as chief executive officer last year. Incoming CEO Laxman Narasimhan will take over in April with a list of pressing tasks, including redesigning cafe kitchens and placating baristas who are pushing to unionize in the US.
Other recent exits include that of Tim Scharrer, the head of Starbucks’s coffee-trading arm, who left in the fall. In October, the chain’s longest-serving board member, Javier Teruel, resigned as a director. Last year, Starbucks said that George Dowdie, a long-serving executive vice president of global supply chain, was planning to leave at the end of 2022.
The Seattle-based chain has shown strong sales in recent quarters as diners absorb higher prices for their lattes. Starbucks is scheduled to report fiscal first-quarter results on Feb. 2.
