The right CEO at the right time can be worth tens of millions of dollars to a struggling high-profile company.
Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol earned $31 million in 2025, more than any other fast-food or fast-casual restaurant boss in the United States, according to industry news site Restaurant Dive.
That’s around $10 million more than McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski and $26 million more than Wendy’s chief exec Bob Wright.
Niccol, a 52-year-old University of Chicago MBA grad who’s been in the restaurant industry for 21 years, also earned $96 million for just four months with the company in 2024 after exiting as Chipotle CEO to lead the coffee chain. (Although much of that was to compensate Niccol for the value of Chipotle shares he forfeited.)
He earns 1,794 times the typical Starbucks worker, according to Restaurant Dive. In his first year at the company, his $96 million compensation package was 6,666 times the median worker’s pay, a fact that was met with backlash across the internet.
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders lambasted Starbucks in March 2025, pointing out the disparity between Niccol's pay and a unionized Starbucks worker's wages.
"If you're the Starbucks CEO, you get $96 million for 4 months of work, including a $5 million bonus," Sanders wrote on X. "If you're a Starbucks union worker, the CEO is refusing to give you a decent raise to pay rent & buy groceries. Starbucks must end its greed [and] negotiate a fair union contract."
But some business experts argue CEOs of multinational corporations deserve these staggering annual salaries because the company’s success lives and dies with the person in charge.
“The belief that these CEOs can make or break a company is deeply rooted in how we think of corporate structures,” University of Washington finance professor Abhinav Gupta told The Seattle Times in February.
“If a company says ‘He’s our last hope to turn things around,’ then the number to get him is going to go up. That’s how it goes.”
That’s where Starbucks found itself when it announced in August 2024 it had fired then-CEO Laxman Narasimhan and hired Niccol.
Coffee break-up
Narasimhan, who made $14.6 million in 2023, according to SEC filings, left Niccol with a company in distress.
Starbucks’ stock price fell to a two-year low of $73.11 in May 2024.
Year-on-year sales fell into the negative for the first time since 2020, employees were trying to unionize and revenue was falling, according to a 2024 article from Business Insider.
Other issues plagued the iconic coffee shop. Occasional customers were leaving the brand for cheaper options, mega-popular mobile ordering was overwhelming stores and the company was bleeding sales revenue in its China stores, according to a September 2024 CNBC analysis.
These factors ultimately doomed Narasimham, who served as the CEO of health and hygiene brand Reckitt, and global chief commercial officer at PepsiCo before joining Starbucks.
Niccol was poached from Chipotle for his glowing track record at the fast-casual Mexican restaurant brand and his previous stint as CEO at Taco Bell.
Known for his risk-taking and creativity, Niccol transformed Taco Bell into a go-to brand for younger consumers. He launched mobile ordering, introduced a breakfast menu, expanded the brand’s delivery options and featured limited-time menu offerings that were a hit with customers, according to a 2018 analysis by CNBC.
During his tenure from January 2015 to February 2018, the stock price of Taco Bell’s parent company, Yum! Brands, rose from the low $50 range to around $70.
He took over as Chipotle CEO in 2018 when the company was struggling to get past the reputational damage of E.coli and norovirus outbreaks at its stores.
In six years, Niccol turned a stumbling company into a juggernaut with considerably more revenue and profit - and a soaring stock price - than when he arrived.
This was just the kind of person Starbucks was looking for, and they were willing to pay him the highest salary in the restaurant business to be its savior.
In his first week on the job, Niccol announced his turnaround plan - a roadmap for success that became known as “Back to Starbucks.”
“Today, I’m making a commitment: We’re getting back to Starbucks,” he wrote. “We’re refocusing on what has always set Starbucks apart - a welcoming coffeehouse where people gather, and where we serve the finest coffee, handcrafted by our skilled baristas. This is our enduring identity. We will innovate from here.”
Location, location, location
Beyond being tasked with a massive turnaround job, Niccol’s mighty salary might also be down to the size of the Starbucks empire. He’s in charge of 40,990 stores worldwide, from the company’s hometown of Seattle, Washington, to Bucharest, Romania.
The number of Starbucks locations is second only Kempczinski, who oversees 44,000 locations worldwide, according to McDonald’s. Though McDonald’s has more stores than Starbucks, 95 percent are independently-run franchises that the company doesn't own or operate.
Niccol earns around $10 million more annually than the Golden Arches boss, and his pay is higher than the CEOs of America’s nine other top restaurant brands.
The pay disparity may be due, in part, to the sheer number of stores a CEO oversees.
Generally speaking, executives who oversee a smaller number of stores earn a smaller paycheck, with one exception - Kevin Hochman, CEO of Brinker International, who earns $30 million to oversee more than 1,600 Chili’s and Maggiano’s Little Italy locations.
Hochman earned $7.7 million in 2024 and $6.3 million in 2023, according to compensation tracking site Salary.com. The huge pay jump in 2025 comes down to one factor: stock price.
Brinker shares have more than quadrupled in value since Hochman was hired, which means all the stock given to him as part of his compensation - a common practice for CEO pay - also jumped more than 400 percent.
The best CEO in America?
Starbucks’ shares have risen 23.1 percent since January 1 - no other major restaurant brand has seen year-to-date growth of more than 15 percent.
The revenue figures, that fell into the negatives during the final year of Narasimhan’s leadership, have remained in the positive for five straight quarters.
Investments in Starbucks staff, new marketing strategies and menu items, and an overhauled rewards program have helped the company rebound, Niccol said in an earnings call last Thursday.
“[The changes are] giving customers more reasons to visit in the morning and the afternoon,” he said. “And they’re making our brand more visible and relevant. And they’re creating real value our customers really love.”
Simply put, Starbucks is relevant again, according to prominent advertising magazine AdWeek, which suggested earlier this year that Niccol might be the best CEO in America.
But experts seem split on whether Niccol deserves his outsized compensation package.
“Whether he is worth it depends on the results,” Rich Pleeth, a supply chain expert and CEO of AI logistics firm Finmile, told The Independent. “If he restores customer growth, improves store economics and creates billions in shareholder value, Starbucks can defend the package.”
While the signs are positive in 2026, Pleeth is taking a wait-and-see approach to his final opinion about Niccol. “It is currently too early to declare any turnaround a success,” he added.
Adam Horlock, CEO at Mississippi-based Pinnacle Public Relations Agency, believes Niccol is worth what Starbucks is paying him.
“Brian Niccol is doing a good job as CEO,” Horlock said in an email to The Independent. “Niccol's best move has been aligning the brand to its core that Howard Schultz started (and restarted in 2008 and 2022). The brand itself is growing by its core strengths, and rebuilding after the tenure of Laxman Narasimhan.”
Meanwhile, Starbucks seems convinced they’re getting bang for their buck.
"Starbucks believes Brian has established himself as one of the most effective leaders in our industry, with a proven track record of delivering long-term value to employees, customers and shareholders,” a spokesperson told The Independent via email.