Jez Langhorn, Senior Vice President, Partner Resources | Photo credit: Starbucks

Starbucks has appointed former McDonald’s executive Jez Langhorn as its new Senior Vice President, Partner Resources. 
 

The Seattle-based coffee chain highlighted Langhorn’s ability to build ‘high performing teams that engage and retain talented people across large scale geographies’ as key to the future success of its human resources (HR) operations.   

Langhorn will be responsible for Starbucks’ entire HR division, with a primary focus on supporting the coffee chain’s approximately 16,150 company-owned, licensed and Reserve stores across the US.  

He will also provide ‘functional leadership’ to Starbucks’ Canadian Partner Resources division to ensure consistency and integration of operations across its North American teams and stores. 

“I have been a customer and fan of Starbucks for a long time, and they have a richly deserved and outstanding reputation for developing and supporting their partners and I’m excited to continue to build on this,” Langhorn said. 

Langhorn has two decades of HR experience working with fast-food giant McDonald’s, both in the UK and the US. 

He joined McDonald’s in 2004 as Head of Talent & Education in the UK and served in various HR roles before being appointed McDonald’s Chief People Officer for the UK & Northern Europe in 2013. 

In the US, he served as Human Resources Executive at McDonald’s headquarters in Chicago from 2015 before being named Corporate Vice President of Center HR in October 2017, with accountability for the HR functions of the fast-food chain’s European, Latin American, Middle Eastern and Japanese markets. 

More recently, Langhorn served as Chief Human Resources Officer for Global Partners, a Massachusetts-based energy company. 

His appointment is Starbucks’ third senior management hire under CEO Laxman Narasimhan, who took leadership of the US coffee chain in March 2023.  

In April, Narasimhan appointed Brad Lerman as Executive Vice President and General Counsel to help ‘protect and advance’ the Starbucks brand globally. He also appointed Arthur Valdez as Executive Vice President, Global Supply and Customer Solutions in July, to manage supply chain and customer solutions across the coffee chain’s growing global store network.