“Apple Inc. hired search firm Egon Zehnder International to lead the recruitment of a new retail chief, according to a person familiar with the matter,” Adam Satariano and Jeff Green report for Bloomberg.
“Ron Johnson, Apple’s senior vice president in charge of retail, is becoming chief executive officer of J.C. Penney Co. on Nov. 1,” Satariano and Green report. “He departs as the computer maker expands internationally. Of the 40 stores the company plans to open this fiscal year, 28 will be outside the U.S. Apple, with 327 total stores, made $3.5 billion from its retail operation in the third quarter, up 36 percent from a year earlier.”
Satariano and Green report, “Johnson, a former executive at Target Corp., is credited with building up Apple’s retail business. The first two stores were opened in 2001 in a bid to diminish Apple’s reliance on outside electronics retailers to sell its machines. The gambit worked: Apple’s sales per square foot of retail space were $4,355 in 2010, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. That’s almost 30 times those of J.C. Penney, and two-thirds higher than luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Analyst: No worries for Apple over departure of retail chief Johnson – June 15, 2011
Why Apple’s retail genius Ron Johnson is paying for the privilege of running J.C. Penney – June 15, 2011
Apple’s retail store chief Johnson off to J.C. Penney; expected to become CEO within months – June 14, 2011
Wasn’t he one of the ghostbusters?
Why bother hiring a high priced, fancy pants recruiter who’ll bilk you millions just to go through some smarty pants resumes? Just hire the guy who runs the fake Apple stores in China, Hu Flung Dung, Esq. There, done in a micro minute.
Hu Flung Dung, eh?
Tee-hee-hee. Nice touch. Who’s your muse, by the way?
How ’bout Won Hung Lo?
Surprised Apple is not filling RJ’s position internally. Ya think someone on Ron’s Retail team would know by now how to sail the ship?
Since RJ and Steve often disagreed about how to run the retail stores, with RJ out of the way, the stores should now really take off.
Possibly, assuming that there were fundamental disagreements and that SJ’s viewpoint was the correct one. SJ is great, but he isn’t right *every* time!
The primary factor in the ongoing success for the Apple Stores is providing products that people want to buy. You don’t see a clearance reject table at the Apple Store for a reason. There are many other contributing factors – store locations, open store design with many products available for hands-on testing, Genius Bar, employee training and commitment, etc. With that foundation, the Apple Stores will continue to be successful even in the absence of a retail chief.
A “clearance reject table” would make a dramatic product filled MS Genius Bar for Microsoft Stores with such a large variety of industry items available.
The cell carriers should set up a Clearance Returns Reject Table in Malls for Android, Rim and Microsoft Smart Phones to wow the public with tech bargains this fall.