Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson received a nearly 40% pay raise in 2021Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson received a nearly 40% pay raise in 2021

Joanna Fantozzi

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson received a significant pay raise from 2020 to 2021, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission financial filing published last week.

The Seattle coffee chain CEO saw his overall compensation grow 39.3% from $14.67 million to $20.43 million last year. However, Johnson’s salary bump was a relatively modest 6.2% pay increase from 2019 to 2021, as overall, foodservice executive salaries wilted during the first year of the pandemic (with one exception being Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol, whose salary grew to $38 million in 2020).  

Although Johnson’s base salary only grew 4.5% from $1.54 million in 2020 to $1.61 million in 2021, a large percentage of his significant pay raise came from the non-equity incentive plan and reflects individual performance goals, as well as stock awards and other incentives. Last year, Starbucks also announced that the company would be tying executive compensation to workforce diversification efforts, which are taken into account for the executive stock awards.

In 2021, the CEO to Starbucks employee pay ratio, according to the SEC filing, was 1,579 to 1, where the median Starbucks employee is represented by a part-time barista in Canada with annual compensation of $12,935.

Other Starbucks executive pay bumps include Rachel Ruggeri, who received a 60% base salary bump from $500,000 to $800,000 for her promotion to executive vice president, chief financial officer, in Jan. 2021. Chief operating officer John Culver received a nearly 45% overall pay raise from $6.47 million in 2020 to $9.37 in 2021.

As Starbucks recovers from the pandemic, total revenues grew 21% to $29.1 billion from 2020 to 2021, and unit growth increased 4% to 33,833 stores nationwide.

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