“Burberry’s former CEO Angela Ahrendts has become Apple’s new senior vice president of retail and online stores and, as part of her compensation stands to earn as much (or more than) $68 million,” Patrick Hanlon writes for Forbes. ” Although the media will be gobbling for the next days, weeks, and months about how much Angela Ahrendts will tap from the Apple money bucket, they will miss the real deal. And the real deal is this.”
“The fashion world is filled with tiger traps,” Hanlon writes. “And the biggest trap of all is believing that the fashion world is really about fashion. Or trends. Or personalities. Wrong. Wrong. Maybe. The world of fashion is a world swirling in great brands. Yes, there are big trends, big personalities, even bigger egos, and sizable fortunes.”
“Just like the computer business,” Hanlon writes. “Just as Ahrendts discovered Mr. Burberry’s vision, she might lead the Apple team back to Steve Jobs’ desire to ‘put a ding in the universe’, and stop riffing off of existing invention. Instead, meld left and right brains to create something that hasn’t been thought of yet.”
Read more in the full article here.
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We can hope but as long as Tim is her boss – good luck with that.
Good luck with getting over your irrational anti-Tim bias.
What do you think about this idea: Tim and Jay were in 4th grade together where Tim beat Jay in the spelling bee, and the rest is history?
You my friend are truly ignorant if who Tim is!
Might, maybe, possibly? Obviously no one knows yet. We’ll know a little more in 18 months. Until then we’re all just guessing. Potential is just that.
Just so long as those stores help me with my problems, and give me some software training when I need it,
I’ll stay happy.
What’s with the “…take Apple back to it’s core.” crap?
And why presume the head of retail and online will have undo influence over product strategy, R&D, industrial and UI design?
Good grief.
she knows noting about product , R & D or design. All she was at Burberry was a merchant. She didn’t design anything , she managed the stores- period. End of story. I think people are going to be in for a surprise. All she can do is try to make the stores a better shopping experience. The NY Soho store needs a major rehab – they ned people with people skills. They have few of them there.
She sees the “big picture,” which unfortunately seems to be a rare ability among tech executives. Apple’s lucky to have her.
. . . “it is core”? Um, it’s = it is, jt. Original title correct.
Correction accepted 🙂 And while it is the responsibility of the poster to proofread what the iOS auto-correction engine does to your typing, I failed to do so.
But that was not, of course, what I was objecting to.
It’s a good thing they brought someone in to fix Apple’s struggling and virtually anonymous retail division.
/sarcasm
If anything she’ll ruin a good thing by trying to make change for change sake.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion… and there are lots of them here. I don’t know what large, successful retail operations any of the writers have had, so it’s hard to know how much attention to pay to what they say.
AA disappointing already! Why?
AA: Tim I need to hang around Burberry a little longer just so I can pick up my 2 million pound bonus.
TC: But AA, we need you at Apple. You already had 6 months notice. What about those “Jobsian” VALUES we talked about? You know, the ‘company/product over personal wealth’ that Jobs always drilled into us before he died. I thought you were of the same mind. I mentioned it to the world on the day we agreed you working for Apple. Don’t you remember?
AA: Come off it Tim. We are talking big bucks (er….I mean quids) here.
TC: How about a $65 Million ‘hello and welcome to Apple’ bonus.
AA: Done!
What a fucking disappointment!…so far.
Yoda: Disappointed with your post, I am.
So Angela Ahrendts is going to channel Steve Jobs? What a bunch of nonsense!
The idea behind articles like this, is to poison your mind about Ahrendts, to upset the Apple cart … so to speak, and it seems to be working, judging by a few of the comments.
These people know how easy it is to push your buttons and by doing so they gain a little more over you and Apple.
Try to rationalise the information before posting a half cocked missive, you don’t see Apple reacting like this.
Even if her boss desired it, Ahrendts has no capability to bring Apple back to its pure beginnings in a California garage where Woz & Jobs created insanely great products that focused on giving the user tools both powerful and pleasurable to use.
Apple is now a corporation that cares more about pleasing Wall Street and Ahrendts is tasked with selling more units. That is reality, and it is not entirely great.