Darren Huston grew up in Canada, where he spoke English at home. He
learned French and Italian when he was a teenager, and after college he
worked in the Canadian government, where his boss was from Quebec and
would only talk to him in French.
After graduating from Harvard Business School, he joined McKinsey & Company. As a consultant, Darren Huston finds out that he aspires to lead a company and he prefers B2C businesses more than B2B businesses. He understands how consumers interact with brands, and Darren like being able to use the products himself.
When Darren Huston was working for McKinsey in Seattle, he saw Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz giving a speech. Huston found him and his company very compelling. At the time, a lot of McKinsey people were leaving to join dot-coms; He joined a coffee company instead. People thought Darren was crazy.
He spent five years at Starbucks working on new ventures and branded products. He led the acquisition of Tazo Tea, helped launch Starbucks concerts, arranged for Wi-Fi to be installed in all of the stores, and created a Starbucks card payment platform.
Through the Wi-Fi project, Darren Huston got to know Steve Ballmer and his colleagues at Microsoft. They recruited Darren, and he was serving in a variety of roles, eventually becoming CEO of Microsoft Japan.
Microsoft is where Darren Huston learned to run a scaled operation. He lived in Tokyo for three years. Some of his direct reports spoke a little English, but they preferred to speak Japanese, so Darren had a translator for a long time. Two levels below Darren, no one spoke English very much. This was his first experience with language barriers as a management challenge.
After graduating from Harvard Business School, he joined McKinsey & Company. As a consultant, Darren Huston finds out that he aspires to lead a company and he prefers B2C businesses more than B2B businesses. He understands how consumers interact with brands, and Darren like being able to use the products himself.
When Darren Huston was working for McKinsey in Seattle, he saw Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz giving a speech. Huston found him and his company very compelling. At the time, a lot of McKinsey people were leaving to join dot-coms; He joined a coffee company instead. People thought Darren was crazy.
He spent five years at Starbucks working on new ventures and branded products. He led the acquisition of Tazo Tea, helped launch Starbucks concerts, arranged for Wi-Fi to be installed in all of the stores, and created a Starbucks card payment platform.
Through the Wi-Fi project, Darren Huston got to know Steve Ballmer and his colleagues at Microsoft. They recruited Darren, and he was serving in a variety of roles, eventually becoming CEO of Microsoft Japan.
Microsoft is where Darren Huston learned to run a scaled operation. He lived in Tokyo for three years. Some of his direct reports spoke a little English, but they preferred to speak Japanese, so Darren had a translator for a long time. Two levels below Darren, no one spoke English very much. This was his first experience with language barriers as a management challenge.
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