Who is Howard Schultz? Find Net Worth, Quote, Awards, Fact, Wiki

Howard Schultz Wiki Biography

Howard Schultz was born on 19 July 1953, in Brooklyn, New York City USA into a relatively poor Jewish family, and is an entrepreneur and businessman, perhaps best known to the majority of people as the chairman, CEO and president of the popular coffee company and coffee-house chain called “Starbucks”.

A famous businessman, how rich is Howard Schultz? According to sources, Howard Schultz’s net worth is estimated to be an impressive $3 billion. Undoubtedly, the majority of Howard Schultz’s wealth comes from his involvement in the “Starbucks” company over more than 30 years, as well as other business ventures.

Howard Schultz Net Worth $3 Billion

Howard Schultz was educated at Canarsie High School, where as a teenager, Schultz was interested in various sports, including basketball and baseball, as a way of coping with troubling reality, that is, lack of money. Schultz went on to continue his studies at Northern Michigan University on an athletic scholarship, from which graduated with a degree in communications, the first in his family to attend university. After receiving his degree, Schultz began working for the document management company “Xerox”, where he rose from being a salesman to a sales representative. However, Schultz left his job at “Xerox” in 1979, to work for a Swedish manufacturer of coffee, “Hammerplast”, where he became US manager for the company in 1981.

Eventually, Schultz learned about “Starbucks”, founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl. which was located in Seattle at the time, and as he expressed a desire to work for them, he was hired for the position of Director of Marketing. However, following a visit to coffee-mad Italy and after subsequent difference of opinion with the owners over becoming a chain of coffee houses, Schultz left the company in order to open his own cafe. As he did not have the money, Gordon Bowker and Jerry Baldwin offered their help and soon after Schultz opened his first store named “Il Giornale”. In 1988, the owners of “Starbucks” sold their business to Schultz – for $3.8 billion – and he adopted the “Starbucks” name, which would soon be recognized all around the world. Schultz’s business insights helped him expand the business firstly around California, where it became known as trendy and fashionable, then across the USA, before the company was floated on the NYSE in 1992, and the rest is a history. Since being acquired by Schultz, “Starbucks” has become one of the largest and most popular coffee-house companies in the world, with more than 23 000 stores owned in over 65 countries. “Starbucks” opened its first store abroad in Tokyo in 1996, which was a first successful step in establishing coffeehouses all around the world. Clearly “Starbucks” is the main source of Schultz’s net worth.

Scchultz actually took a break from direct involvement in “Starbucks” in 2000, partly to indulge his sports interest by acquiring the Seattle Supersonics basketball team, which he then sold at a profit in 2006. Concurrently, after the success of his first book, co-authored with Dori Jones Yang – “Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time”  released in 1997, he was working on his second book, “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul“ co-authored with Joanne Gordon and eventually published in 2011. Both added to his net worth.

“Starbucks” has continued to be a great business success under the direction of Howard Schultz, such that he was listed as  Business Person of the Year by Fortune magazine in 2011, and has been on the list since then – probably the highest accolade among several other awards over the last 15 years, including National Leadership Award, International Distinguished Entrepreneur Award, which he received in 2004, and FIRST Responsible Capitalism Award to name a few.

In his personal life, Howard Schultz married Sheri Kersch in 1982, and they have two sons.