Brian Niccol: Brian Niccol, the CEO of Chipotle, succeeds Laxman Narasimhan as CEO of Starbucks.

The CEO rotation at Starbucks continues unabated despite the company's declining sales. After just one year in the position, Laxman Narasimhan is leaving immediately, the company said on Tuesday.

 With effect from September 9, the beleaguered coffee chain has appointed Brian Niccol, the CEO of Chipotle and a seasoned corporate fixer, as both chairman and CEO. In less than two years, Niccol will become the fourth CEO of Starbucks, having taken the helm of the Mexican-inspired food chain since 2018.

Citing its revenue growth of nearly 800% during his tenure, Starbucks claimed he has "driven significant growth and value creation" and set "new standards in the industry."

Chipotle's (CMG) stock fell 9% at opening, while Starbucks' (SBUX) stock shot up nearly 19%. Following Tuesday's announcement, Starbucks' losses for the year have been erased, and the stock is expected to see its largest one-day percentage gain since going public in 1992.

Since taking over Starbucks in March 2023, Narasimhan—who is also leaving the board—has seen the coffee chain mainly struggle. The chain's sales at locations open for at least a year have most recently decreased by 3% worldwide, with a 2% decline in its native North American market.

In 2021, Niccol wrote in the Harvard Business Review, "I also realized that Chipotle would greatly benefit if it could harness the power of digital." "Only if we rearranged our restaurants to enable skip-the-line pickup would our nascent mobile app prove beneficial to patrons. As a result, we installed grab-and-go shelving next to the registers in each restaurant and provided patrons with food finding instructions.

Additionally, he stated that Chipotle's rewards program assisted the business in gathering consumer data "to better understand what motivates them to place and pick up an order, or come into a restaurant to eat, and how we can encourage them to do both more often."

Starbucks, which has approximately 34 million loyalty program members who account for 60% of total spending, and which generates 31% of all transactions from its company-operated stores in the United States through its mobile app, may find value in that experience.

Among food and beverage retailers, Starbucks was a pioneer in mobile order-ahead technology, introducing the "Mobile Order & Pay" function into its smartphone app a decade ago.

In an attempt to increase revenue, which decreased 4% in the most recent quarter, the company has been promoting new in-app offers.

Starbucks' longtime chairman and CEO, Howard Schult, recommended in a May LinkedIn post that the business reconsider its mobile ordering approach.