Luigi Bonini — Senior Vice President of Global Product Innovation at Starbucks

Mr. Luigi Bonini serves as Senior Vice President of Global Product Innovation at Starbucks Corporation. Mr. Bonini leads product development and innovation for Starbucks Corporation's food and beverage categories, including U.S. Retail, CPG, Tea, Evolution Fresh and the Roastery and Reserve stores. Since joining Starbucks in 2011, his team has delivered more than 300 products annually with a product innovation approach that is tailored to the Starbucks Corporation's brand. In partnership with the Category Brand Management team, he has created a pipeline of product platforms that set up Starbucks businesses for continued growth. Prior to joining Starbucks, he gained more than 20 years of experience in product innovation in the food industry with some of the world's most iconic brands. He began his career in quality assurance in the food ingredients sector of the Tongaat Hulett Group in South Africa. He followed this with a move into product and process development with Kraft Foods in its European Research and Development headquarters in Munich, Germany. In 1996, he joined Yum! Brands as technical manager for the Middle East region and moved to Singapore in 2000 to lead quality assurance and new product innovation for the company's Asia franchise business unit. Since 2006, he served as Vice President, Food Innovation & Technology for the Pizza Hut brand, a global role based in Dallas, Texas. Later, he led innovation globally for both the Pizza Hut & KFC brands. Among his achievements at Yum! was establishing a council of Power Innovators, a group of leading innovators from around the world to drive product and platform innovation. He is fluent in German, French and Italian. He is honors graduate in food science from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.