Starbucks Names Indian-Origin Amazon Veteran Anand Varadarajan as New CTO
Starbucks appoints Indian-origin Amazon veteran Anand Varadarajan as new Chief Technology Officer.
Starbucks has appointed Indian-origin technology executive Anand Varadarajan as its new executive vice president and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), the company announced on Friday. Varadarajan will lead Starbucks Technology globally and report directly to CEO Brian Niccol, succeeding Deb Hall Lefevre, who retired in September.
Varadarajan brings nearly 19 years of experience at Amazon, where he built large-scale, customer-focused technology platforms. Most recently, he oversaw global grocery technology and supply chain operations, including Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market, managing complex systems and guiding executive decision-making during periods of rapid growth.
At Amazon, he also led technology, product, science, and marketing teams for Amazon Private Brands and served as a technical advisor to Doug Herrington, then SVP of Amazon North America Consumer Business. He contributed to brand protection, software engineering, and machine learning initiatives, and mentored senior leadership teams in organizational design and succession planning.
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Before Amazon, Varadarajan held senior engineering positions at multiple technology companies. He worked at Motorola in their software division developing “push” technology, at Openwave as principal software engineer and development manager, and at Viquity as a senior software engineer. He began his career at Oracle in 1998 as a member of technical staff, contributing to Oracle Advanced Replication for mobile and distributed databases.
Varadarajan holds an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and earned master’s degrees in civil engineering from Purdue University and computer science from the University of Washington. His extensive educational background underpins a career spanning software engineering, product development, and supply chain technology leadership.
Outside of his professional commitments, Varadarajan is an avid runner aiming to complete all seven World Marathon Majors and a coffee enthusiast. His appointment reflects Starbucks’ focus on strengthening its technology and innovation capabilities while leveraging global expertise to enhance customer experiences.
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