This Week's Top Five Leadership Stories

What Mistake Does Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol Admit Making?

Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol has faced more than his fair share of scrutiny since taking on the top role at the coffee company in September 2024. 

Replacing a predecessor who lasted only 18 months, Niccol met slumping sales and investor pressure, operational and customer experience issues and labour challenges. 

Lucky, then, that he brought to the business a reputation as a turnaround artist, largely due to his successful leadership at Taco Bell and Chipotle. 

However, the first year at Starbucks hasn’t been plain sailing for Niccol. The company’s stock has seen decline after an initial spike on his joining. 

At the same time, his appointment drew criticism from labour advocates including the union representing Starbucks workers, and his ‘Back to Starbucks’ transformation plan has been met with a mixed response. 

Niccol candidly alluded to these challenges when speaking at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference, where he shared leadership insights, emphasised the importance of humility and adaptability, and admitted to a key error after coming onboard. 

Jensen Huang: How AI will Change the Future of HR at Nvidia

The benefits and implications of AI adoption in the workplace are an ongoing theme for senior leaders.

There’s little doubt, however, that Nvidia's Jensen Huang is the leader of the pro-AI-adoption team. Discussing the technology in his January keynote at CES, one of the world’s largest tech trade shows, he said that “the age of agentic AI is here”.

Jensen believes that AI will not only be used as a tool to assist workers, but will instead be employed just like people - eventually going through a hiring and orientation process to absorb a company’s culture.

In an interview with Citadel Securities published on 15 October, the Nvidia CEO said AI employees will be a “couple-of-trillion dollar market opportunity probably”, with “AI digital nurses, AI accountants, AI lawyers”.

Jensen added: “I wouldn’t be surprised if you licence some and you hire some, depending on the quality and depending on the deep expertise.

“So future workforces in enterprise will be a combination of humans and digital humans.”

BlackRock & ExxonMobil: Rethinking Enterprise Emissions

A new coalition including BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners, ExxonMobil and Santander has formed with the aim of redesigning how corporate carbon emissions are measured across supply chains, products and financial portfolios. 

The group, known as Carbon Measures, seeks to eliminate double-counting and introduce consistent standards for calculating the carbon intensity of traded goods.

Amy Brachio, Chief Executive of Carbon Measures and former Global Vice Chair for Sustainability at EY, leads the initiative alongside organisations such as chemicals group BASF SE, consultancy EY, industrial gas company Linde Plc and Japanese conglomerate Mitsui. 

She says the group’s approach reflects the need to embed emissions data into the value of physical products, explaining that “if you are buying a tonne of steel, you need to understand how much carbon went into producing that tonne of steel, so that when it's sold you're not only selling the asset of the steel, but you're selling the liability – so to speak – of the carbon emissions that go along with it.”

Schneider Electric CEO Olivier Blum’s Vision for the Future

CEO Olivier Blum has opened Schneider Electric’s Global Innovation Summit in Copenhagen by setting the tone for the company's technology and sustainability agenda.

Addressing global business leaders, policymakers, employees and industry leaders, including 600 C-level executives, Olivier began with a clear statement of intent: “Energy, digital technology and geopolitics are reshaping the systems that power our lives. The challenges are complex, but the opportunities are extraordinary.”

He told guests: “A lot of things are changing in the world, but one thing that shouldn’t change is the profound commitment we should all have to the energy and climate transitions.

“Preparing a better future for the next generation is our collective responsibility.”

In his first keynote as Schneider Electric CEO, Olivier discussed how the company is spearheading energy and sustainable transformation against the backdrop of an evolving industry. 

He said: “Everything we care about, our planet, our people and technology, depends on energy. 

Will Disney be the Next to Hop on the Co-CEO Bandwagon?

What is it with co-CEOs right now? 

Granted, the c-suite only ever ticks along with relative stability, but since September a flurry of announcements has thrust a joint leadership model front and centre of the boardroom agenda. 

Oracle kicked things off, naming Clay Magouyrk and Mike Sicilia as co-CEOs in September after long-serving Safra Catz moved onwards and upwards within the business. 

In fairness, the cloud giant has previous form – Catz was a co-CEO with Mark Hurd from 2014 until Hurd’s death in 2019.

Taking Oracle’s lead, several other big names in the industry followed, including Comcast and Spotify. 

Disney might just be next. Succession planning has been a core priority at the entertainment giant for some years since current CEO Bob Iger announced his plans to step down from the role in mid-2023, effective at the end of his contract in 2026. 

The company has a formal succession plan, being carried out by its special Succession Planning Committee and outlined in a 2025 proxy statement. It intends to announce a new CEO in early 2026.