Starbucks taps Amazon's Anand Varadarajan as new chief technology officer

[Hitman]

Dec 19 (Reuters) - Starbucks said on Friday it has appointed Anand ‌Varadarajan as its new chief technology officer, ‌effective January 19, as CEO Brian Niccol pushes a tech revamp in stores to make labor more ⁠efficient.

Varadarajan will ‌fill the role after Deb Hall Lefevre stepped down in ‍September, following which the coffee chain named Ningyu Chen as interim CTO.

Varadarajan comes after a 19-year stint at ‌Amazon, where he headed the technology and supply chain operations for its worldwide grocery business. He has also previously worked at Oracle.

Starbucks posted ⁠its first quarter of gains in comparable sales after nearly a year and a half in late ‍October, ⁠as the company started to see some returns from Niccol's extensive ⁠turnaround efforts in the United States.