Following speculation that Apple’s outgoing retail chief Angela Ahrendts might take up a significant role at Ralph Lauren, the fashion firm has now shot down that rumor as unfounded.
Apple is looking to find new ways to elevate its in-store and online shopping experiences, with the goal of forging deeper relationships with its loyal customers.
A new report Wednesday claimed that the 58-year-old executive wasn’t really interested in taking the reins of another company as some feared.
Apple today announced that Angela Ahrendts, who is currently the company’s SVP of retail, will be departing in April after 5 years. Her successor will be Dierdre O’Brien, under the official title of senior Vice President of Retail + People.
A variety of new Today at Apple sessions just launched at every Apple Store worldwide, covering photography, design, health, fitness and more.
“Internally we said the tagline was ‘an iPhone for everyone’,” Ahrendts said.
Beginning next month, the iPhone maker will be launching dozens of new educational sessions, collectively called “Today at Apple,” across all 495 Apple Stores worldwide.
Apple’s boss of online and physical retail stores, Angela Ahrendts, no longer has “Online Stores” in her official title. Instead, Apple is now referring to her role simply as “Senior Vice President, Retail” to better reflect its efforts to simply retail branding. Her reworded title along with a tweaked job description is live at the Apple Leadership webpage.
The change occurred over this past weekend. This is a purely cosmetic change: her responsibilities have not shifted and she is still in charge of all things retail at Apple.
During an all-hands meeting held with retail employees this weekend, Apple’s retail boss Angela Ahrendts discussed changes coming to its brick-and-mortar locations while revealing an updated corporate credo that all retail employees are expected to follow.
She also announced three new retail positions—Pro, Creative Pro and Technical Expert—renamed a few existing ones and shared tidbits on Jony Ive-approved store design and layout, as first discovered by MacRumors.
CBS has posted video of its Inside Apple interview conducted by 60 Minutes’ Charlie Rose. The interview encompasses a wide range of subjects such as Apple’s design studio activity, following Steve Jobs, the success of the Apple Watch, China, and much more.
True, most of the content consists of softball questions, and there’s really nothing new to be gleaned here that we didn’t already know. Still, it’s a highly-calculated, yet nevertheless interesting, look inside Ive’s design studio, Apple management meetings, and other behind-the-scenes clips. In other words, if you’re a fan of Apple, it’s basically must-see TV.
Noted journalist and television talk show host Charlie Rose will be offering an inside look at Jony Ive’s design lab and new store design on Sunday. CBS’ TV series 60 Minutes announced Rose’s upcoming segment via Twitter late Thursday evening.
According to the tweets, 60 Minutes will be showing footage from inside Jonathan Ive’s secret design studio at Apple’s headquarters—an area few outsiders have traveled. In one of the tweets, a photo shows Ive explaining a design process to Rose.
Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s recently-hired senior vice president of retail and online stores, was the highest-paid female executive in the United States last year. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, Ahrendts was awarded $82.6 million in 2014, including a sign-on bonus and a make-whole grant for money she left on the table at Burberry.
Coming in second on the list was Oracle’s Safra Catz, who raked in $71.2 million in fiscal 2014 for her role as chief financial officer and co-CEO. Rounding out the top 3 highest paid female executives was Yahoo!’s Marissa Mayer who, at 39-years-old, was the highest-paid female chief executive last year, with a salary of $59.1 million.