The beginning.
Son of a lorry driver, Schultz experienced first-hand what it meant to have a difficult childhood. His father, after breaking his leg and not having private health insurance, managed to support the family with a low income for a short time, but Howard started working early and hard: at the age of 12 he found a job in a café. He went on to get a degree thanks to a grant for sporting merit and he was employed by Xerox, then by a household goods company and finally as sales director at Starbucks, which at the time was a small yet innovative coffee shop in Seattle.
The Italian dream.
The turning point came after a business trip to Milan, during which Schultz observed closely the relationship between customers and bartenders in the city and the pleasure of going to the bar over and over again for a simple “coffee break”. On his return to the USA he delighted customers with the famous cappuccino, tripling sales in just one year. In the meantime, he tried to convince the Starbucks founders to transform the coffee shop into an Italian-inspired café, but the owners refused. At this point he decided to change tack.
Il Giornale.
Schultz was determined and strongly believed in his idea. So much so that he decided to get his own licence, apply for bank loans and open Il Giornale, which brought customers through the door from day one. He took on almost 2 million dollars of debt, to which he added a further 4 million dollars in loans to buy Starbucks when the owners put it up for sale in 1987. The dream was in his hands: he showed photos taken from amongst the tables in Milan to his employees. He told them never to get a customer’s name wrong, writing it on the paper cup with a marker.
Dreams became reality.
Five years later, with a chain of 165 cafés, Schultz listed the company on the Wall Street stock exchange and closed the year with a 93 million dollars turnover. There are now more than 22 thousand cafés distributed across 65 countries and the revenue is around 16 billion dollars. Technology and environmental sustainability are essential aspects of the business. Today customers can choose from almost 300 product combinations. The most important thing for Schultz is still to dream big, and then even bigger.