“Apple has poached Enrique Atienza from Levi Strauss, a global clothing sales powerhouse, to become a top director for its U.S. Retail market, according to sources with knowledge of the hire,” Mark Gurman reports for 9to5Mac.
“Atienza served as Senior Vice President, Retail Americas and Global Store Operations at Levi’s, according to Levi Strauss spokeswoman Sarah Young,” Gurman reports. “Young also said that Atienza recently left the company, but she would not confirm details regarding the transition or circumstances.”
Gurman reports, “A source says that Atienza will be the director of all retail matters for many regions within the West Coast of the United States, and this role is one of the highest ranking retail positions inside of Apple… Sources also say that Apple’s Steve Cano, who some have compared to Apple Retail pioneer Ron Johnson, was given an expanded Vice President role earlier this year. Cano reports directly to Tim Cook, and Atienza [who will start in October] will report to Cano.”
Read more in the full article here.
Not exactly thinking outside the box here . . .
Why don’t they just hire Ron Johnson back – but with a pay cut since his last job was less than stellar.
This is proof that a larger iPhone is coming. They’re using him to get Levi’s to make a bigger pocket in their jeans to hold a larger iPhone.
I like your thinking. Instead of forcing phones to fit the gauge of one’s clothing, change the clothing!
Could this be a glimpse of another industry disruption by Apple?
That’s thinking outside box!
It will be a shrink-to-fit phone.
Cargo pockets may not be fashionable, but they are ideal for cell phones. The belt clip ripped off of my cell phone case a few months ago and I have been carrying my phone in my pocket since then. Cargo pockets are ideal for a cell phone – easy to reach, more likely to hear/feel an incoming call, and more comfortable. Belt-clip phone cases get in the way when engrossing/egressing a car or engaging a seat belt.
iPhones with corner rivets.
Way to go Cano! Turns out you can sleep your way to the top while wearing the same outfit everyday.
Maybe it’s a sign that Apple is getting into wearable computing. 🙂
This after hiring the former CEO of Yves Saint Laurent, as well as the Nike Fuelband guy. It would be interesting to know why wearable computing expert Richard DeVaul jumped ship to Google so soon after Apple hired him.
Idly, I’d guess he went to Apple to work on iShades, had his precious prototype nixed by Jobs or had a kerfuffle with Mansfield, got a no-strings pitch by Google and went there with his patent(s) to build Glass.
“The thing is, Richard, we’ve always believed the device should be an extension of the person, not the other way around.”
“What do you mean, Steve?”
“I mean, this is shit. Take that thing off. You look like a moron.”
Perfect 🙂
To get Apple Retail back to where it needs to be Apple needs to stop looking to the retail world to hire and start looking at the service industry. They should be looking at the heads of very high end service based hotels. This is what Jobs based the retail stores on to start with, and while Johnson did come from Target he had Jobs there to keep the focus where it needed to be. The downward slide in the customer experience at the retail stores has come from the hiring of experienced “Retail” people who think the stores are over staffed because there is more than the minimum needed to ring people up. There is too much focus on metrics and not on the customer experience.