Starbucks Dangles $6 Million Stock Grants to Executives to Speed Up Turnaround—Bloomberg

Bloomberg reports that Starbucks is offering performance-based stock grants worth $6 million each to executives as part of its “Back to Starbucks” turnaround plan, spearheaded by CEO Brian Niccol. The awards are contingent on aggressive cost-cutting measures and in-store experience improvements, and come amid union criticism and questions about executive pay strategy.

Providing expert commentary, Farient Advisors’ Brian Bueno offers critical context, noting that about a quarter of S&P 500 companies have issued special awards to named executive officers in recent years. These grants, Bueno explains, are commonly tied to retention, but increasingly focus on specific strategic or operational goals—highlighting how Starbucks’ move fits into a broader shift in executive compensation practices.

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About Brian Bueno

Sustainability Practice Leader, Farient Advisors/GECN Group, New York

New York
(646) 626-6929
brian.bueno@farient.com

Brian Bueno is the Sustainability Practice Leader at Farient Advisors. In this role, Brian guides the firm’s strategy, research, and analysis on sustainability and corporate governance matters. Brian focuses on the still-evolving sustainability landscape and its intersection with executive compensation and incentives in order to assist clients in understanding stakeholder considerations and developing and implementing appropriate programs that help create stakeholder value.

Prior to re-joining Farient in 2022, Brian was Vice President and product manager at Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a leading proxy advisory firm, where he led the development of solutions that assist institutional investors in evaluating executive compensation and related areas at their portfolio companies across global markets. Additionally, at ISS’s Corporate Solutions arm, Brian led the creation and management of product platforms that allow companies to benchmark themselves across executive compensation and ESG topics.

Prior to joining ISS in 2015, Brian worked at Farient, where he managed the development and delivery of Farient’s Performance Alignment Reports and associated research, including analyses on executive pay definitions and financial performance metrics and their link to shareholder value. At Farient, Brian also worked with clients across various industries, including energy, industrials, banking, and insurance. And before Farient, Brian held a market research role involved in identifying opportunities and risks in particular industries and communicating findings to clients and media.

Brian holds a BS from the University of Southern California’s (USC) Marshall School of Business with a triple concentration in finance, marketing, and entrepreneurship.

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