
Chris Legler, whose vast experience and knowledge of finance, specifically tailored to the coffee industry, brings an unrivaled expertise to the Ultimate Coffee Profitability Seminar.
Chris has been a Financial Strategist for more than 18 years with experiences in the coffee, retail, entertainment and manufacturing industries. As owner and roaster of a coffee roasting/wholesale company in Northern California, Chris gained an understanding of the needs and challenges that face small businesses. Chris’s hands on approach and deep understanding of the coffee business provide excellent insight in financial planning for coffee retailers, wholesalers and roasters.
Chris’ background in providing assistance in developing tools such as sales analysis, beverage costing models, labor modeling, and project analysis is extensive. He has helped a variety of companies in understanding their strategic mission and creating an actionable, tactical plan to achieve these goals. Identifying and locating business growth opportunities, creating cost saving measures and prioritization of action steps is one of Chris’ great strengths.
Chris has held executive positions in finance and administration, marketing, retail operations and strategic planning. He was Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Barnie’s Coffee and Tea Company and has held positions of increasing responsibility with Starbucks Coffee Company, Sony, British Petroleum, Blockbuster Entertainment, Eddie Bauer and Hasbro.
While at Starbucks, Chris participated in the early high growth of the company as they grew from less than 50 stores to over 2,000 during his tenure. He was instrumental at developing the initial beverage costing models including gaining a deep understanding of cost components, condiment usage and regional variances in beverage production. He also worked heavily with Real Estate, Retail Operations and Marketing. Projects included development of proforma models that projected new store economics prior to lease negotiations, implementation of cash control and loss prevention measures and installation of labor scheduling models and systems.
Chris earned his MBA in Operations Management and International Business from Seattle University and his Bachelors of Business Administration in Finance from Pacific Lutheran University.
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