Starbucks on Wednesday said that Mellody Hobson would take over as non-executive chair of the board in March when Myron Ullman retires.
Ullman has been on the Seattle-based coffee giant’s board for 18 years and has been its chair since 2018, when he took over for company founder Howard Schultz. In a statement, Schultz said Ullman “has been instrumental in ensuring Starbucks answers its higher calling to be a different kind of public company.”
Hobson has been on Starbucks board for 15 years and had been its vice chair—Schultz called Hobson “a fearless leader defined by her grace and wisdom” who has “long embraced the purpose of Starbucks.”
Hobson is the co-CEO of Ariel Investments, a global value-based asset management firm. She is also chairman of the board of the company’s publicly traded mutual fund and had been the firm’s president for nearly two decades before that.
Hobson is also a director at JPMorgan Chase and is the former chairman of the board at DreamWorks Animation.
In addition, she is the chairman of After School Matters, a Chicago nonprofit that provides teens with after school and summer programs, and she is vice-chair of World Business Chicago, co-chair of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and a board member at the George Lucas Education Foundation and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is also a member of the Rockefeller Foundation board of trustees.
“Over nearly two decades, I have seen the company continue to elevate and transform its business, adapting to various market environments and evolving consumer trends,” Hobson said in a statement.
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