Starbucks CFO is Leaving the Company

Shares of Starbucks dropped in Thursday trading as Wall Street learned that the company’s chief financial officer and executive vice president Scott Maw will be retiring in November.

Maw, who has been with the company since 2011, will retire on November 30th. He will remain as a senior consultant for the company after he retires until March of 2019.

Starbucks is already searching for its next CFO.

Kevin Johnson, CEO of the coffee giant, commented, “As we enter our next phase of continued growth, I am confident in the finance team Scott has developed and am appreciative of his willingness to support through the transition into new leadership.”

The company recently announced that it would be closing 150 poorly performing stores and that same-store sales will grow just 1% for the quarter that begins next month.

“Our recent performance does not reflect the potential of our exceptional brand and is not acceptable,” Johnson said in a statement. “We must move faster to address the more rapidly changing preferences and needs of our customers.”

Last week he said on a call from the Oppenheimer Consumer Conference, “In this last quarter, we had an unplanned initiative related to the incident in Philadelphia that culminated in closing stores.”

Maw had said that the closures “had an impact.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) and have not been compensated for this article.