Starbucks Corp.’s operating chief is leaving the coffee chain at the end of February to serve as chief executive officer at another publicly traded company, a key departure for a leadership team that’s already going through some big changes.

The company didn’t say where Chief Operating Officer Roz Brewer is headed, and she didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. The announcement, buried at the bottom of a Tuesday statement on quarterly results, said her responsibilities are being distributed to other members of the leadership team.

The news of Brewer’s departure comes just weeks after Starbucks announced its top finance officer will retire after a little more than two years in the role. In March, it’s also getting a new board chair, as Mellody Hobson replaces Myron Ullman, who’s retiring.

Brewer, a former executive with Walmart Inc. and a current director of Amazon.com Inc., joined Starbucks in 2017 and is among the most prominent Black female executives in corporate America. When Brewer came into the role, Starbucks was working on two key initiatives: bolstering sales in the U.S. and China, and boosting its digital reach. It’s done both under her watch.

On the digital front, the number of active rewards members in the U.S. reached 21.8 million at the end of 2020, up 15 per cent for the year. In terms of retail growth, China is back to same-store sales expansion and Starbucks said the U.S. will return to positive territory this quarter as it moves past the worst of the pandemic-related shutdowns. The U.S. and China are the company’s two largest markets, together making up 61 per cent of its global portfolio.

For Starbucks, Brewer’s departure shouldn’t lead to any major product changes or impact to the business, according to Edward Jones analyst Brian Yarbrough. He expects the gains Starbucks has made in digital customers to continue to drive business.

“You always hate to see good talent leave, but at least she is moving up to a CEO role,” Yarbrough said in an email.

“It is always a little concerning when the COO and CFO leave within a short time of each other,” said Yarbrough, who has a buy rating on the stock. “But we believe Starbucks has a deep bench of talent and do not expect much impact on the business moving forward.”

Brewer could land at any number of consumer-facing companies, having notched time at some of the biggest names across the industry. After more than two decades at Kimberly-Clark Corp., she joined Walmart, where she eventually became CEO of the Sam’s Club warehouse store chain. She has spent time on the boards of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Molson Coors.

Brewer is routinely cited on lists from publications such as Fortune and Forbes as one of the most powerful women in the business world.

Wherever she lands as CEO, she’ll be joining an exclusive club. About 6 per cent of S&P 500 companies are run by women. There hasn’t been a Black female CEO in the index since Ursula Burns left Xerox in 2016.