In a new article for Fortune, Adam Lashinsky talks to Apple’s retail boss Angela Ahrendts who talks about Tim Cook’s leadership – and how he lured her to Apple.
“The first time Tim Cook interviewed Angela Ahrendts they met in Cupertino, Calif., where Apple is based, but not at Apple’s offices,” Lashinsky reports. “An Indiana native, Ahrendts was CEO of Burberry in London at the time, and Cook was looking for a new head of Apple’s retail operation, his previous hire not having worked out. Both were famous, and least in certain circles, and the two didn’t want to be spotted together.”
Lashinsky reports, “Ahrendts had been thriving at Burberry, and was flattered to be called but hardly thought she’d join Apple. ‘I did not expect to be moved by the man, and I left and I thought, ‘Ohhhhh! My life was perfect. Aaargh, why, why, why?'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Second time’s the charm!
Ahrendts is CEO-in-waiting
You could be right.
Perhaps, the iWatch will spin off into a company itself where she may be the CEO of.
There is no iWatch. Just as there will never be a spin off company for the WATCH. I’m not sure Angela has the logistics chops the be CEO of Apple. She’s probably where she belongs for the rest of her career. 😎
Yes. Tim Cook is a supply chain genius. Apple sells over 400 million complex hardware devices every year, almost none built in-house. That’s iPods, iPhones, iPads and Macs, with Watches soon to add another 50 million or so. That is a lot of stuff and you don’t just farm it out to the low bidder. Steve knew what he was doing when he hired Tim.
You don’t put a sales person in charge, just ask Microsoft.
A bunch of us use iWatch on our phones because there’s no easy way to add the .
Settings > General > Keyboards > Shortcuts
Tap the + and then paste into the phrase field
Type “aapl” or the text of your choosing in the shortcut field
Not! 💥😩🚀
doubt it
…waiting for the yoga ball pic, then we’ll know.
Angela is a tool for the elite.
Last time I checked the “elite” have plenty of disposable income to bolster any lucky company’s bottom line. So the problem is…?
The problem is that Ford makes a hell of a lot more money than Ferrari. Most companies don’t achieve success by selling products that the vast majority people can’t justify buying.
Fortunately in this case Apple is the Ferrari making Ford money at Ferrari prices while others are Hyundai’s making money at relative Schwinn bicycle profit share. Or some such fiddle faddle. 🙂 Apple is the exception to conventional wisdom on pricing as history has shown.
not so sure about that.
Apples’ app stores print money. Apple’s products seem well built so people with money to spare will buy the hardware.
But lately Apple has taken a turn that isn’t so attractive to a large number of potential customers. Apple in the last few years has released freebie flat watered-down software pushing people to the iCloud. Apple’s hardware has been hit and miss (pent up demand for iPhone 6 = hit, but Mac Pro and dumbed down Mac mini and several other stale products = misses. No new iPods = misses No new displays = misses. and Apple is clearly running away from enterprise and small businesses by refusing to listen to those pro customers. Apple stopped offering the products that they did just a few years ago for no apparent reason other than Cook’s desire to push everyone to iOS and iCloud. Well, some of us aren’t going there.
Take away Jobs’ iTunes store revenues, and Apple would look much weaker right now. Its products keep getting lashed tighter and tighter to iCloud server rentals, which isn’t necessarily what customers want or need. Product support has been poor for businesses. And i don’t think that the app store will print money forever. Apple needs to have a healthy Mac platform too, and right now it really doesn’t. Entire industries couldn’t use Macs even if they wanted to, and that’s Apple’s fault.
As for the Apple Watch, we shall see. I think it’s a luxury that will take quite a while for the average person to consider it important enough to replace their current watch-free lifestyles.
Ahrendts is an ex-CEO, right? Burberry. Clearly she can be again. Right now she seems satisfied to stay at Apple but who knows what the future may bring. Perhaps there’ll be an opportunity at Federated or Nordstrom. Then the issue will be whether Cook can retain her. He had to pay her over $70M just to get her to join.
What a beautiful statement for citizens of the free world: “The first time I sat down with him, I walked away thinking wow, that’s a man of peace,” she says. “I just absolutely loved his integrity, his values. Nothing anybody can write, say, or do is going to take him off of always doing the right thing. Not just for Apple, but for Apple’s people, for communities, for countries. The world needs more leaders like Tim.”
You can rest assure citizens of the free world that you know who will consider this pretty well unpatriotic and a threat to their some sort of national security. Certainly not a threat to their national integrity as they no longer have any.
Of course it’s possibly only dawning on some now that gays are chick magnets (oh yes it’s a stereotype), and that is an additional benefit of Tim’s leadership.
Yes the world needs more leaders like Tim, that’s equation. The world also needs less leaders like, well, we all know who.
Before we promote her to CEO perhaps we should wait until we see something she had personally had a major role in. Apple watch and how it is sold in stores should be a good example and maybe the redesigning of Apple Stores.
I have no doubt that she will be successful at Apple. I would just like to see some tangible effects at some point.
Can we even quantify her time at Apple as having a positive impact?Has she done anything to make things better?
So far my perception has been, she’s coasting. But I admit I don’t know. There hasn’t been enough time, I guess.
I just love this line from the article:
“Ahrendts has been at Apple for almost a year and hasn’t yet revealed any big changes she plans for its stores”
So she has been there a year and done what? Nothing. What a waste. Anybody else would be out of a job. The lovefest coming out of Apple is sickening. But then again, she is one of the ‘elite’ and not a normal worker. Cause if a normal worker didn’t do anything for a year, do you think they would still be around?
… As opposed to Browsett, who shoved through some BIG changes and demoralized EVERYONE. The usually joyful, energetic and eager store employees went into total paranoia mode about Apple turning into just another Retail-Hell shop. I heard this frequently from people I know who work there still.
Does everyone, especially the employees, love the Apple Stores these days? Mostly the answer is a big YES. Sprucing up the goose that lays the golden eggs is a GREAT accomplishment and obviously the wisest thing to do. Huge DUH.
Where Ahrendts is going to show off her fashion skills is obviously the Watch, which no doubt has been Cook’s vision for her.
Also China is on her keychain, since her Burberry days, and she will be the one responsible for stupefying sales in the land of the dragons, pushing Apple over the trillion dollar mark and leaving sceptics slack jawed. 👢💲