He started as a part-time Starbucks barista at 17. Now he’s an exec designing the menu
For most people, a part-time barista job while studying is a means to an end: something to top up their bank account and pad their résumé before landing a “real” job. Sam Henderson thought the same when a friend convinced him to apply for a role at a Starbucks in Leicester, U.K., at 17. He needed pocket money, so he threw on the green apron.
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Nearly 20 years later, he’s the man responsible for every drink flavor served across Starbucks stores in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He created the famous Cookies and Cream Frappuccino. He has a house, a passport full of stamps, and a company-paid food science degree-level apprenticeship—all from what started as a Saturday job pouring coffees.
“It’s amazing to think that from a part-time job, I’ve got this life now that I couldn’t have imagined when I was younger,” he tells Fortune.
Henderson’s story is timely. As AI continues to wipe out entry-level office jobs, barista and hospitality roles are quietly becoming one of the more viable places to start a career—better paid, more stable, and with more room to grow than most people assume. Henderson is proof of what’s possible. And he’s got some pointed advice for Gen Z workers who think they’re too good for barista jobs.
“I would never shut down any opportunity,” he says, adding that you never know what path it could lead down. Promotions and big breaks “can come from anywhere.”
“When you look at hospitality, it isn’t just the isn’t just the job that you see in front of you. There’s this whole support network that goes behind it,” he adds. “If you choose to work at a coffeehouse, it’s a great job. If you choose to work for the restaurant, it’s a great job. But if you do want to do something different from that, there are opportunities within that business.”
Case in point: Despite starting out taking orders and serving commuters their caffeine hits, Henderson’s now working in Starbucks’ corporate head office.
Barista jobs are the new ‘grad scheme’—and CEOs say Gen Z should stop snubbing them
The college-to-desk-job pipeline that previous generations took for granted is, by most expert accounts, broken.
Randstad CEO Sander van ‘t Noordende, whose company places around half a million workers in jobs every week, recently warned that young grads may have more luck landing barista, bartending, or trade jobs than the office roles they’d set their hearts on.
Verizon’s chief talent officer, Christina Schelling, put it more bluntly: “There’s a path that you have in your head that you’ve built up for however long, and anything different from that maybe doesn’t feel good enough. But my advice would be to recognize that within yourself, put it aside and just start somewhere.”
Schelling, who has led people teams at Estée Lauder, Prudential, and American Express, is clear that taking a hospitality job doesn’t mean giving up on bigger ambitions—but it’s a start that can open doors. And that’s better than holding out for the dream job and not working at all, like so many Gen Zers are.
“The transferable skills that come from a hospitality job or a retail job—conflict resolution, relationship management, understanding and assessing the customer needs, understanding customer experience, you get management practice—are so transferable,” she told Fortune. “So there’s just so much of that that is important for any job that you are building, even if it doesn’t feel like the path that you thought you would start building on.”
Governments are nudging in the same direction. In the UK, hundreds of millions of pounds are being pumped into hospitality and service roles to tackle youth unemployment and steer young people into jobs.
The money is getting more competitive, too. Starbucks just announced it will offer U.S. baristas up to $1,200 a year in performance bonuses from this July, alongside expanded tipping—changes the company estimates could add 5% to 8% to take-home earnings on top of an average $30 an hour in pay and benefits.
Meanwhile, research has found that frontline workers—from baristas to bar tenders—are increasingly out-earning white-collar entry-level peers as demand for human-facing roles grows while AI automates junior desk-based jobs.
Henderson’s advice for anyone who thinks a barista job is beneath them
Today, through Starbucks’ Beanstock share scheme, Henderson’s funded trips to India, America, and South Korea, put money toward buying and renovating his own home, and is now the person deciding what millions of people will drink next season—all from a job he took for pocket money at 17.
If you do end up working behind a counter, Henderson says, treat it like training, not a dead end.
He kept the part-time job through university, transferring stores as he moved cities because “the great thing about Starbucks is there are lots of Starbucks around the country.” After graduating in 2011, he stepped into a full-time supervisor role while he weighed up his next move, completed a business lead