“A new financial filing shows that Apple made extraordinary financial offers to Sr. VP Angela Ahrendts last year, hoping she would quit her job at Burberry, move back to the United States and take control of the company’s most visible operations, the on-line and retail stores,” Gary Allen reports for ifoAppleStore. “At the time, Apple says that Ahrendts was among the highest-paid executives in the UK, and so they assembled a combination of Apple stock grants, an annual salary and bonus, relocation expenses and even an unusual severance package to lure her to the company.”
“Apple offered $33 million in ‘new hire’ stock grants to ‘encourage Ms. Ahrendts to join the Company and to provide her with a meaningful equity stake in the Company.’ Another $37 million in Apple stock grants were designated as ‘make whole’ shares, to compensate Ahrendts for Burberry stock she held, but had not yet vested,” Allen reports. “The new-hire grants were based on Apple’s traditional performance metrics and vest over several years. The make-whole grants were structured using Burberry’s metrics in effect at the time. Ahrendts was also offered a $1 million annual salary, and a $500,000 ‘hire-on’ bonus intended to offset some of the Burberry compensation she lost upon leaving that company.”
“The relocation expenses amounted to $457,615 — and Apple then paid Ahrendts another $323,903 to pay the taxes on the first amount,” Allen reports. “And lastly, perhaps recalling the short tenure and quick departure of Apple’s previous Sr. VP Retail John Browett, Apple offered Ahrendts a severance package.”
Read more in the full article here.
eh.
If she can transform Apple Stores into venues where people can easily try on (or see on themselves through technical wizardry) multiple watch faces with multiple bands, she will be worth far more than $70 million.
Thus far Apple stores have been mostly do-it-yourself showrooms. But you sell jewelry much differently, primarily because people want to see it on.
Burberry was already doing very forward thinking things in their stores along these lines. It’s no surprise Apple just picked up a key Burberry player regarding the above.
no single person actually earns that much money per year. It is a waste of shareholder resources to mint royalty when professionals to fix other more pressing Apple problems can be hired so inexpensively.
Rest assured no executive will take any financial loss if the Apple Watch was to fail — why not withhold several millions of her obscene payment until AFTER she shows that she earned it? So far she has accomplished absolutely nothing to the outside observer. Zilch.
You need $70 million to come work for the greatest company on the planet? I’d do it for $70k a year.
Would you pay $30 million to work for the greatest company in the world? That’s what they would have been asking her to do in leaving Burberry. She had $30 million in unvested sticks.
Every time I got to the Valley Fair Mall in Santa Clara, the Apple Store is 10 times busier than any other store. The M$ store across from it is barely occupied with more staff than customers.
As an Apple shareholder it is great to see the store so busy. Getting service is not too bad (especially if you book an appointment) but I could see customers potentially being ignored if they are not bold enough.
What I would like to see is the existing stores expanded in size. Doubling or tripling the space would make sense to me. If this is not done soon I fear that customers will start avoiding the stores since they are becoming quite claustrophobic.
“Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.” – Yogi Berra
I can definitely understand what you are saying, but doubling or tripling the size of the store won’t make much difference if they do not also hire more staff. I believe the sales justify this, but I’m not sure how Apple plans to handle this situation. I would expect the stores in China are the most crowded and “claustrophobic” of all their stores, I’d look to see how they handle that first before they deal with the problem elsewhere.
“but I could see customers potentially being ignored if they are not bold enough.”
Some sort of Apple policy shift has occurred at the Genius Bar, at least in Newport Beach. I’ve heard several people who used to get questions answered being refused or brushed off lately. These are non-techie older people who run into problems with their MacBook Pros, have extended warranty and the One to One.
I don’t have specifics, but there has been a change. My suspicion is Apple is trying to limit the use of the Genius Bar. Is that right? Is it going to give Apple the image it wants?
Regardless of Apple equipment being “easy to use,” the devices have become relatively complex and full of options and features and utilities which are not easily explained in a few minutes. An example is people with a 2-3 year old MBPro often don’t understand why Yosemite doesn’t work as expected and don’t understand all the subtleties.
The question is how to get solutions to a non-tech owner of Apple equipment who come into a store without using up too much Genius Bar time and depriving other people access.
One to One training I’ve tried is mostly useless for any technical solutions as it is just overview stuff for a new user.
I would hope Angela at Apple puts up something like a “Solution Counter.” Put up a row of iMacs with searchable, Hardware Model, software & OSX version solution oriented content for both hardware and software issues designed for the new and non-tech user to quickly educate themselves with an “in-store help system.”
I’m not saying it is easy, but there have to be lots of questions to the Genius Bar that are on the same subject and they answer over and over again and Apple knows it. Seems like a computer is the logical answer to sort through and regurgitate the known issues for its loyal customers.
Of course, it could be online, too, as a problem solving site.
I was just at the Apple store in Crystal City in Arlington, VA. Not too far from it, on the lower level, is the Microsoft store. As I was passing the MS store, I noticed that there more workers than customers. Some trying to look busy. Yet, three floors up, almost opposite the MS store is the Apple store. It’s so crowded. Very busy. Almost all the workers were involved. I just wonder how long can MS keep this up. Mind you the temp outside was in the mid-30’s F…and it’s not even the busiest week.