Jamba Juice CEO James D. White to kick off Dean’s Speakers Series

Jamba Juice CEO James D. White will kick off the Dean’s Speakers Series Sept. 3 at Haas, discussing how he led the company through a turnaround, building Jamba Juice into a global juice powerhouse.

White will speak at 12:30 p.m. in the Wells Fargo Room on Leading Transformational Change.

The Dean’s Speakers Series focuses on distinguished leadership, specifically how leaders succeed by helping to create organizations where innovation is allowed to flourish.

Additional Dean’s Series speakers this fall include Duncan Niederauer, former CEO of the NY Stock Exchange Group, (Sept. 10), Deanna Berkeley, the president of Alice + Olivia, (Oct. 16), Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California and former United States Secretary of Homeland Security, (Nov. 4), and Biz Stone, co-founder and CEO of Jelly Industries, and co-founder of Twitter, (Nov. 6).

White, who is also chairman and president of Emeryville, Ca.-based Jamba Juice, joined the company in 2008, facing management and profitability challenges. To help Jamba Juice navigate the recession, White, a St. Louis, Mo. native, shifted Jamba Juice’s business model to include more franchises than company-owned stores.

Now the nation’s largest fresh juice and smoothy retailer, Jamba Juice has 854 stores globally — 551 of which are franchises selling hot new items like kale and chia seed juice. The company recently announced ambitious plans to add 500 new stores nationwide over the next five years.

Previously, White held executive positions at Safeway Stores, The Gillette Company, Nestle Purina, and the Coca Cola Company. He has been a director at Hillshire Brands, Inc. since 2012 and is a director at Daymon Worldwide, Inc.

The talk is free and open to the Haas community. Learn more about the Dean’s Speaker Series at https://haas.berkeley.edu/haas/about/deansspeakers.html.

The series is made possible in part by the Mary Josephine Hicks Distinguished Speaker Series Fund.

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