The career of Brian Niccol, from Taco Bell to Chipotle and Starbucks

Brian Niccol makes big changes at Starbucks. It is hardly his first time trying a turnaround in a fast food chain.

Niccol has two decades of experience in the catering industry, from Pizza Hut to Chipotle. He perfected a specialty at that time as a person who can take a chain in difficulty and succeed.

Here’s how Niccol has become one of the most notable leaders in the catering industry.

Niccol made his debut to Procter & Gamble

After graduating from the University of Miami in Ohio in 1996, Niccol took a job from the manufacturer of Consumer Products Procter & Gamble.

One of his first successes was a marketing campaign for the drinking rinses of the bezel that allowed customers to send animated kisses via the Hotmail messaging platform, Nicol told Los Angeles Times in 2015.

While the button rinse itself was not new or innovative, Niccol said that the campaign used technology then new to keep the brand relevant. “What I have always seen are the marks that have a young state of mind, a young vigor, they have a great value proposition,” he told Times.

While working at Procter & Gamble, Niccol obtained an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Niccol’s first restaurant role was at Taco Bell’s Parent

Niccol joined Yum! Brands, the company that owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, in 2005. His first roles were in Pizza Hut. In 2011, he became CEO of Taco Bell.

Under Niccol, Taco Bell rejected the perceptions of its food quality. In 2011, a trial alleged that Taco Bell beef used too many charges. The trial was rejected, but the impact increased Taco Bell’s results in the neighborhoods thereafter, the leaders said at the time.

Niccol supervised various changes, from the new “Live Más” slogan of the channel to a new breakfast menu. Taco Bell also launched the Doritos Locos Taco, which uses a shell coated with the flavored coating of the chip, and began to serve explosions of drunk baja and other alcohols in Taco Bell Cantina locations.

Changes have rejuvenated sales. As Niccol went to this next job in 2018, an analyst described his mandate as CEO of “revitalization of the brand” for Taco Bell.

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Niccol supervised a successful return to Chipotle

At the end of 2017, Niccol learned that the founder and CEO of Chipotle, Steve Ells, planned to resign as soon as the Mexican grill chain could find its replacement.

“When I saw the news, I thought:” It’s interesting “,” said Niccol at the Harvard Business Review in 2021. At the beginning of 2018, he became the new CEO of Chipotle and director.

At the time, the Mexican grill chain struggled. A few years earlier, Chipotle had to face an E epidemic. Coli of several months in its restaurants which finally overthrew more than 1,000 people. Like the trial on Taco Bell meat, the benefits harm the brand’s sales longer than the executives expected.

Chipotle has made great changes once Niccol has become CEO. He moved the company’s headquarters in the County of Orange, California, Colorado. Chipotle also strengthened food security procedures and training for employees, Niccol’s steps praised at the beginning of 2020 while COVID-19 spread around the world and customers have become more aware of their health.

And in a few years, Chipotle has gone to have no digital presence in the addition of driving condemned roads, called “chipotlanes”, for having picked up online orders in thousands of stores.

The changes worked. Chipotle’s actions were traded around $ 6 per share when Niccol took office as CEO in March 2018. When he left for Starbucks last year, chipotle shares were $ 56 each.

Niccol’s work at Chipotle has contributed to consolidating its managerial status that could improve the financial performance of restaurants.

“They could have struggled at the time, but my boy, in the heart, I thought there was a reason they should succeed,” said Nicol at the time.

Even the current biography of Niccol Starbucks mentions its time at Chipotle.

“It has more than doubled the company by establishing a chipotle as a culinary leader, by pioneering digital innovation, by introducing new fascinating menu offers and widening internationally,” said biography.

Niccol faces his biggest test in Starbucks

Niccol joined the coffee chain as CEO in September.

Before even starting, industry analysts said Niccol ‘achievements at Chipotle and Yum! were solid references to meet the challenges of Starbucks, in particular the fall in quarterly sales and operational challenges such as long waiting times.

However, Starbucks is larger and more complex than Chipotle, have underlined certain analysts. Chipotle had around 3,700 locations in its store of stores mainly based in the United States at the end of 2024. Starbucks, for its part, had around 40,000 stores from September, according to its latest annual file with the SEC. Just over half of them were outside North America.

Although it is only six months of work, Niccol has already supervised many changes at Starbucks.

The coffee chain dismissed around 1,100 corporate employees last month, a decision which, according to Niccol, would allow Starbucks to “operate more efficiently, increase responsibility, reduce complexity and stimulate better integration”.

Many Starbucks customers have also noticed changes in their local stores, the return of self-service bars for milk and sugar to the requirement that customers make a purchase to drag there.

Changes in the Starbucks mobile control system, including timed pickup slots, could also arrive, said Niccol.

The objective is to win back customers and restore the traditional role of Starbucks as “third place” to spend time in addition to work and the house, said Nicol.

“Our stores will invite places to dwell, with comfortable seats, a thoughtful conception and a clear distinction between the” take-out “and” For-ear “service, he wrote in his first public message as CEO in September.

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