Cheryl Steele is vice president of Global Security & Resilience for Starbucks Coffee Company. She sets and leads the strategic direction for the physical safety and security across Starbucks global enterprise, inclusive of its retail, non-retail and manufacturing/distribution center locations. This includes the Starbucks partner workforce and customer occasions across ~32,000 stores in 84 global markets. Cheryl also leads the company’s crisis management and business continuity practice, leveraging a network of intelligence experts to identify and escalate future risks and frame an enterprise-level perspective. She leads a global team of subject matter experts in physical security, risk intelligence, security technology systems, business resiliency (partner preparedness, crisis management, and business continuity), supply chain security and occupational safety. Based in Seattle, her team includes partners in London, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Cheryl represents Starbucks as a Council Member to the Department of State’s Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC).

Cheryl began her career as a diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, with overseas assignments in Egypt and Jordan. Later work as a management consultant and business development leader included expertise on counter-terrorism, U.S. Special Operations and the defense-diplomacy-development nexus, and supporting the launch and maturity of public-private partnerships on global diplomacy and development issues. Cheryl is a native of Massachusetts. She has her BA from Hobart & William Smith Colleges and an MA in Political Science from Columbia University in the City of New York.