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10 Starbucks engineering leaders
These ten current and former Starbucks engineering and technology leaders, including Starbucks' CTO and a former CTO, have run infrastructure, cloud, platform, retail, supply chain and equipment engineering at the company. Readers can learn how Starbucks organizes technology leadership, runs cloud and store infrastructure, and builds systems for stores and supply chain.
Professionals to explore
01—10Anand Varadarajan
LinkedInExperience: Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer · Starbucks
Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer at Starbucks since 2026, a C-level Engineering and Technical role. His profile also lists Vice President, Worldwide Grocery Technology and Supply Chain at Amazon (2007–2026), Software Lead at Motorola Mobility (a Lenovo Company) (2004–2007) and Principal Software Engineer, Software Development Manager at Openwave Systems (2001–2004).
Chris Boyle
LinkedInExperience: Vice President, Infrastructure, Engineering, and Operations · Starbucks
Vice President, Infrastructure, Engineering, and Operations at Starbucks since 2025. His other Starbucks roles include Vice President, Infrastructure Engineering & Operations (2024–2025), Vice President, Infrastructure & Cloud Services at Starbucks (2023–2024) and Director, Enterprise Infrastructure Services (2020–2023); his profile cites over 25 years of technical engineering and management experience in infrastructure and cloud services.
Deb Hall Lefevre
LinkedInExperience: EVP and CTO · Starbucks
Former EVP and CTO at Starbucks (2022–2025). Her profile also lists EVP and CTO at Couche-Tard Circle K at Alimentation Couche-Tard (2017–2022) and Corporate VP Global Enterprise Solutions & Business Transformation at McDonald's (2015–2017), and describes experience in customer digital technology, large scale retail operations, cloud computing, cybersecurity and AI.
Ganesh Anantharaman
LinkedInExperience: Director Engineering - Supply Chain Planning · Starbucks
Director Engineering - Supply Chain Planning at Starbucks since 2016; his profile says that as Director of Engineering he leads Global Supply Chain products, and its headline cites global supply chain technology. He was Manager Quality Engineering at Starbucks (2013–2016) and Principal Consultant at Infosys (2001–2013).
Jerry Jia
LinkedInExperience: Vice President of Cloud and Infrastructure Engineering · Starbucks
Vice President of Cloud and Infrastructure Engineering at Starbucks since 2020; his profile says he is responsible for developing and executing global cloud architecture and infrastructure engineering strategies. He was Senior Director of Cloud Platform Architecture at Starbucks (2016–2020) and Embedded Systems Engineering Manager at Microchip Technology Inc. (2011–2016).
Muneeb Ashraf
LinkedInExperience: Director of Engineering · Starbucks
Director of Engineering at Starbucks since 2025; his profile headline cites platform engineering and AI enablement. His other Starbucks roles include Engineering Manager (2020–2025), Lead Software Engineer (2019–2020) and Senior Software Engineer (2017–2019), and he was a Senior Software Engineer at Croem Inc (2012–2017).
Natarajan Venkatakrishnan
LinkedInExperience: VP Engineering - Equipment, Packaging, Processing and Tryer Center · Starbucks
Former VP Engineering - Equipment, Packaging, Processing and Tryer Center at Starbucks (2017–2021) and SVP Partner & Customer Solutions there since 2021, a role in which his profile says he leads the business strategy, engineering, store testing and Tryer teams. His profile also lists CEO at FirstBuild (2013–2017) and Executive Director - Advanced Technologies at GE Appliances, a Haier company (2008–2013).
Sudarshan Anand
LinkedInExperience: Director of Engineering Customer and Retail Technology · Starbucks
Director of Engineering Customer and Retail Technology at Starbucks since 2025, a Director-level Engineering and Technical role. His other Starbucks roles include Director Of Engineering, Corporate Technology (2021–2025), Manager of Application Development (2017–2021), QA Manager (2014–2017) and Lead QA Analyst (2013–2014).
Tal Saraf
LinkedInExperience: Senior Vice President Engineering and Architecture · Starbucks
Former Senior Vice President Engineering and Architecture at Starbucks (2016–2019). His profile also lists Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President Customer Engineering at Atlassian (2022–2026) and Vice President Of Engineering, Head of People Engineering at Meta (2019–2022), and describes building and scaling infrastructure for large technology applications and services.
Todd Shaver
LinkedInExperience: Vice President Infrastructure Platform Engineering · Starbucks
Vice President Infrastructure Platform Engineering at Starbucks since 2024, based in Seattle. His other Starbucks roles include Vice President, Retail Infrastructure and SRE (2017–2024) and Director, DevOps (2016–2017), and his profile also lists Director, Systems Engineering at The Walt Disney Company (2012–2016).
Choose the right perspective
Match the person's scope to your question: CTOs and senior vice presidents suit questions about technology strategy and organization, while infrastructure and product engineering leaders suit questions about running platforms and delivering systems. Check whether the Starbucks role is current or past before asking about recent practices.
Questions to take into the conversation
- 01How should a large restaurant brand split engineering between store systems, customer apps and corporate platforms?
- 02What does it take to run cloud and store infrastructure reliably across thousands of locations?
- 03How do you build engineering teams for supply chain planning and equipment alongside digital products?
About this directory
This is a professional research starting point based on business profile data retrieved on . Titles and companies reflect that source snapshot and may describe past or present roles. Check the linked profiles for current details. Inclusion does not imply Instant Expert membership or availability.
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