gains for many investors.

He stepped down as CEO in 2000, but retook the helm in 2008 after the U.S. housing crisis sent Starbucks, which had been on an expansion tear, spiraling.

Schultz, who closed hundreds of stores and turned the company around, remained hands-on after transferring the CEO job to Johnson in April 2017.

He was heavily involved in steering the company through an anti-bias training program last month.

That effort came after a Starbucks cafe manager’s call to Philadelphia police in April resulted in the arrests of two black men who were waiting for a friend - leading to protests and accusations of racial profiling at the chain.

Schultz was also overseeing the opening of upscale Reserve stores and massive Roastery showrooms as part of an effort to shore up Starbucks’(where, being Belfast born, I was also a minor league expat of sorts), my journey to the league was less than straightforward, and it was indirectly inspired by a truly unlikely figure. Before I get to my road-to-Damascus encounter with Steve Bartman (yes, that Steve Bartman) though, a little context …

I arrived in New York in 2003 as a lifelong Sunderland fan and, the local sports ecosystem being what it was, a default Premiership advocate. The latter sat uneasily with me. Having attended my first game at Roker Park in 1979, and having somewhat lost interest as a teenager during the dog days of the 1980s (European bans; Thatcher ranking fans somewhere on a sliding scale of humanity that also included striking miners; and to be honest, the