Q+A | John Culver

How do you spend your weekends?

Leading the Starbucks China and Asia-Pacific business, I am often traveling, spending time with my teams in the market. The weekends are special times to enjoy connecting with my family. We have many activities with my children that we enjoy participating in together. The weekends provide an opportunity for us to reconnect as a family and spend quality time together.

What are your hobbies?

I enjoy being active, reading and spending time with family and friends. In the summer I enjoy spending time with my family at the beach, swimming. In the winter months we like to ski together.

What is the saying that you like the most? Why?

I believe our strongest asset as leaders is the people that we surround ourselves with to create our teams. Hiring great leaders is critical to our success at Starbucks. I believe great leaders build trust with their partners (employees) and enable them to achieve great results. Leadership is about setting a clear vision, providing support and instilling confidence in others to accomplish things they did not think were possible.

What is the quality you most admire?

I admire leaders who are able to lead through inspiration. People want to be part of something bigger than themselves. At Starbucks I am so fortunate to work with leaders who inspire our partners to deliver on our brand promise to customers around the globe every day. We are building an enduring, well-respected brand and at the heart of that are our partners.

What do you value the most in your friends?

Friendships are very important to me - both my friends at work and outside work. Being able to share life's moments with people that I am close to - over a great cup of Starbucks coffee in one of our stores - is incredibly important to me.

What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?

In addition to being incredibly proud of my family, I am also proud of the work that we do at Starbucks and the experience we deliver to customers around the globe.

I am proud of the way we are building our business in China, the way we take care of our partners, the investments we make in the local communities we serve and the way in which customers are today embracing the Starbucks brand in China.

Today we have more than 700 outlets across the mainland and employ more than 10,000 partners.

To be part of a company that for 41 years has balanced profitability and benevolence is truly rewarding. We love what we do and that passion comes through in the experience that we deliver to our customers, the care that we take in selecting high quality beans and the ways in which we take care of our people.

Name places in China that impressed you most and those you have not visited but want to explore?

Each trip to China is unique and leads me to a greater appreciation of the special way China is embracing the Starbucks brand. Whether it is celebrating our 100th store in Beijing, hosting the Partner Family Forum in Shanghai or celebrating Starbucks Global Month of Service in Chengdu, each moment reminds me of the passion and dedication our partners have in delivering the Starbucks experience.

On my most recent trip to China I was honored to travel to Pu'er and participate in the opening of our first Farmer Support Center in China. During the trip I visited the coffee farms and saw at first hand how important the investments we make in local communities are for long-term sustainability.

I look forward to each trip and spending time with our partners and customers.

Who do you most admire?

I admire many people.

One of the people who had the biggest impact on me is my father. He taught me the importance of being my own person and demonstrated the qualities of being a good person, including integrity, trust and treating people the way you want to be treated. I also learned many things from him about leadership as I was growing up.

I have also been fortunate to work with many great leaders throughout my career. Today, I am very proud to work for Starbucks, a company that was built on many of the same great qualities I learned from my dad - treating others with respect, taking care of people and investing in the communities we serve.