Howard D. Schultz (born July 19, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American businessman, author, entrepreneur, and former executive chairman and CEO of Starbucks Corporation. Growing up in a working-class Jewish family in a public housing project in Canarsie, Brooklyn, he faced financial hardships that shaped his work ethic, working jobs from a paper route at age 12 to a furrier in Manhattan's garment district by 16. A gifted athlete, he earned a football scholarship to Northern Michigan University, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in communications. After college, he worked in sales for Xerox and Hammarplast before joining Starbucks in 1982 as director of retail operations and marketing. Inspired by a 1983 trip to Italy, where he observed Milan's coffeehouse culture, he envisioned transforming Starbucks into a community gathering place. Unable to convince the original founders, he left in 1985 to start his own coffee bar chain, Il Giornale. In 1987, he acquired Starbucks using investor funding, merged it with Il Giornale, and became CEO. Under his leadership from 1987 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2017, he expanded Starbucks from 11 stores to over 16,000 locations worldwide, emphasizing ethical sourcing, employee benefits, and corporate social responsibility. He served as executive chairman until 2023 and briefly as interim CEO in 2022–2023. Schultz is also known for his involvement in Democratic politics (though he considered an independent presidential run in 2020), ownership of the Seattle SuperSonics NBA team from 2001 to 2006, and authorship of books such as 'Pour Your Heart Into It' (1997) and 'Onward' (2011). His story is often cited as a classic 'American Dream' narrative, rising from poverty to global business prominence, with a net worth estimated in the billions from Starbucks stock and investments.