Business Insider: On January 8, 2008, the second day Howard Schultz was the newly-reinstated CEO of Starbucks Corp., its stock jumped 8 percent. A few days later, Schultz read a MarketWatch article about turnaround CEOs. Its author advised that Schultz follow the lead of CEOs like Steve Jobs and Charles Schwab, who led successful turnarounds and "recognize what they had built isn't a religion."During his eight year hiatus -- when Schultz served as chairman -- the company grew from approximately 5,000 stores to 15,000. But it was all too fast. In 2007, Starbucks' stock dropped 42 percent. "The damage was slow and quiet, incremental, like a single loose thread that unravels a sweater inch by inch," Schultz says in his book, Onward.
In early 2007, Schultz wrote a memo to then-CEO Jim Donald about the company's slow demise, which was later leaked to the media. A few months later, the board ousted Donald and brought Schultz back in.
Beginning in the depths of the recession, the turnaround took two years. Today, Starbucks has more than $10 billion in revenue and employs 150,000.
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