(Bloomberg) -- New Starbucks Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Niccol appointed Molly Liu as the sole leader of the China business as he continues to remake the company’s management ranks.
Last year, Liu was named China co-CEO alongside Belinda Wong, who had been in charge of the business since 2011, the company said in a statement. Wong will stay on as chair, leading innovation and China’s development strategy while enhancing the brand’s social influence.
The move is part of a plan to shift leadership to “a new generation of successors,” according to a post on Starbucks’ WeChat channel.
Liu’s appointment marks the second executive management change at Starbucks in the roughly three weeks since Niccol took over as the chain’s CEO. Last week, the company announced the retirement of its North America chief, whose role won’t be filled. The company is looking instead for a global brand leader to oversee areas such as product and marketing.
The company is struggling with weak demand across its two biggest markets, the US and China. Liu will have to stabilize a business that’s under threat from lower-priced competitors while balancing the goal to add about 1,700 stores to the chain’s current count.
Starbucks owns and operates its Chinese stores rather than through a third party, as it does in many other international markets. The company’s prior CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, said in July that the chain was in the early stages of exploring “strategic partnerships” for that market, an initiative activist investor Elliott Investment Management had pushed the company to continue.
In a message shortly after taking over, Niccol said the company needed to further understand how Starbucks could “capture growth and capitalize on our strengths” in China.
Starbucks shares fell less than 1% at 10:13 a.m. in New York trading, while the S&P 500 Index was roughly unchanged.
--With assistance from Daniela Wei.
(Adds context about strategic China review starting in sixth paragraph. Adds shares.)
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