(Yicai Global) Jan. 7 -- Luckin Coffee, the Chinese startup that aims to be bigger than Starbucks in its home country this year, has hired a former executive at Standard Chartered Bank as its chief financial officer.

Reinout Schakel brings 10 years of experience in equity and debt financing and mergers and acquisitions to Luckin Coffee, the Beijing-based company said in a statement today. He will report directly to Chief Executive Qian Zhiya.

Schakel was executive director for consumer and retail coverage at Standard Chartered in Hong Kong, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also occupied a senior position at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong and worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Schakel graduated with an MBA from the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University and is a chartered financial analyst, his profile shows.

Founded in October 2017, Luckin's small outlets and takeout service gained it instant popularity. The company became China's fastest-growing unicorn, worth USD2.2 billion in the latter half of 2018, after securing funds from Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC Private, Joy Capital and other venture firms.

But the firm is not content to rest on its laurels -- probably because it lost CNY857 million (USD125 million) between January and September -- and plans to open another 2,500 outlets this year to take its overall tally to 4,500, according to a senior manager who spoke at a press briefing last week. Luckin aims to surpass Starbucks in terms of store count and cups sold to become China's biggest coffee chain, he added.

The massive loss is a result of what co-founder Yang Fei describes as Luckin's strategy to seize market share: heavily discounting to attract new customers. The firm expected to lose more than CNY800 million, Yang said last week, adding that the addition of 2,000 outlets and 10 million customers was worth the deficit. That is a necessary cost to raise awareness and dominate the market, he said.

Editor: James Boynton