Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s Highest Paid and Only Female Executive, Charged to Make Apple Experience Even Better

Source from The Guardian confirms that the top-paid and only female executive to join Apple in 2013, is now on her second year as Senior Vice President Retail and Online Stores.

Apple is hoping Angela Ahrendts' industry expertise to be translated across industries. The former Burberry CEO from 2006 to 2014, is credited with turning around the ailing fashion firm, and started as SVP of retail and online stores at Apple in the spring of 2014. The gadget giant created the role for her, and became the first woman on Apple CEO Tim Cook's executive team. Apple’s brick-and-mortar stores are among the most profitable in the world. Ahrendts is also the first person responsible for 400+ brick-and-mortar stores as well as online retail efforts. In a company-wide email, Cook said: "I had never met anyone whom I felt confident could lead both until I met Angela." Ahrendts has moved to California from London, where she became CEO at Burberry in 2006. By the time she left the company, revenues had nearly tripled to more than $3 billion and also stocks returned 300% in 2013, and made her the highest paid top executive in the UK on the FTSE 100 company list according to The Guardian.  Prior to joining Burberry, Ahrendts held leadership positions at Liz Clairborne, Henri Bendel, and also at Donna Karan International.

Whether she would exceed expectation is still to be seen. But as one British fashion insider says about the executive, “There’s something of the cult leader about her …She absolutely knew the business inside out. She never let you see a moment of doubt or even questioning. She was relentlessly positive and totally driven,” the year ahead seems to be quite promising.

More about the “wicked smart” Angela Ahrendts:

• She left the $26m job last year to become Apple's head of retail
• Ahrendts earned $73.4m in shares during first year, her salary is $440,000