Vanessa Friedman, writing for The New York Times:
In 2013, when Ms. Ahrendts was poached with great fanfare from Burberry, where she was chief executive, fashion speculated that she might become the friendlier, more stylish, face of Apple; in her former job, she had been known for her communication skills and charm, and Apple is not known for its female executives. The potential upside of having her as both a manager and an ambassador seemed high.
Yet since starting last year, aside from a few LinkedIn posts on management techniques and the news that she was the highest-paid female executive in the United States in 2014, with a combined package of $82.6 million, she has largely disappeared from public view.
And:
In a recent Fortune profile tied to the publication ranking her as the 16th most powerful woman, a rare interview since Ms. Ahrendts joined Apple (and which, the magazine said, she agreed to only when it was clear they were writing the article whether she participated or not), she explained her absence by saying she wanted to first listen and learn. Fair enough. Listening was one of her signature traits at Burberry. And according to Fortune, she has slowly been changing the company’s retail culture. (The fact you get an email or text telling you when it’s time for your Genius Bar appointment so you don’t have to hang around and wait? Thank Angela.)
But it’s been more than 16 months, and it’s hard not to think Apple is missing a trick here. Especially if it is interested in casting itself in part as a fashion brand.
Curious.
Ha! I’ve been tweeting about this for months! In contrast, is there a stage that the previously elusive Jony Ive hasn’t set foot on these days? Every website I go to features yet another interview with him.
Do you have some examples? Other than the Vaniy Fair summit (which he did last year too) and that article with Anna Wintour about the Met Gala where has he given interviews or been featured recently?
Regarding the NY Times article, I do wonder why Apple isn’t using Angela more. I get the feeling it’s driving home the point she was hired to run Apple retail, not fashion. Ron Johnson never got a lot of stage time or PR when he was at Apple either.
In reading the Fortune article, it’s quite clear what Angela has been up to. What’s the confusion?
As attractive and personable as she is, that is not why she was hired. That is not her job. I’m sure her job requires deep immersion into a myriad of matters of substantial complexity, consultation with a myriad of contractors, consultants, designers, etc., and a lot of time to simply mull over plans and decisions—all of which would be severely compromised if she also had to present a public face.
Retail stores, both brick and mortar and online, are huge factors in Apple’s operations and its success. Leave her alone to do her job. Go elsewhere to find pretty faces to leer at.
Simple, she hasn’t finished her Apple University classes yet! :-Â
from the article: “If the tech retail wars are heating up, perhaps it’s finally time to deploy her.”
She is deployed. Just not as a spokes-model.
Apple PR has been getting her out there a little more as seen in several articles written with Apple’s cooperation, but an executive is not a celebrity.
Maybe Angela doesn’t want to make herself and her life open to the public. Once that door is opened, you can’t control how that turns out. Just look at public hand-wringing over Steve Jobs’ health issues and personal life. Or on a lesser scale the kerfuffle of wether or not Tim Cook was officially “out” or not.
Outside of the Apple hardcore fans, the gossipy tech press, and business press. Who really cares? Most people couldn’t recognize the names of any other Apple exec, and probably not even Tim Cook himself.
Retail is about selling the products, and as such the focus should be on them. And for the most part it is. Jony Ive doesn’t even appear in Apple ads, just those films that are seen at press events, and online. The cult of Apple is not what sells. The promise of Apple’s products is what sells.
Was the NYT expecting that Angela show up at their Genius Bar appointments.
Apple Watch and all that luxury brand positioning didn’t come3 out of thin air.
Similarly, it’s post-Ahrendts that we’re seeing Apple seize on seasonal colors. Seasonal cases, seasonal watch bands… And (shocker) Apple Retail is uniquely positioned to offer them.
With the newest additions, there are now SIXTEEN SKUs of iPhone 6/s cases alone. That’s a ton of planogram space and financing for a typical third-party reseller to muster.
Then there’s Apple Watch, which has spent a considerable amount of its time sold only by Apple itself. Even as it’s become available more widely, it has 32 SKUs not counting Edition models AND has 50 replacement band SKUs.
All roads lead back to Retail. You want to accessorize your iThing, there’s one place guaranteed to have the color and size you want: Apple itself.
I also imagine she’s concentrating on medium term strategy. If wearables do take off as a category they’ll do it over a period of years and they will do it by being something that normal people use. Normal people buy things they wear in department stores like Macy’s and Nordstrom, as well as higher end fashion stores. I would assume she’s focused on that both internally and externally.
Angela sits for a weekly video to her retail employees. We don’t see her, but her employees see her more than anyone else running the company.
The most important call she has to make is how the burden on the Geniuses will be relieved. Wait times are growing and growing, stores aren’t showing up fast enough to help, more and more phones/watches/macs/ are being sold, and customers are getting testier and testier and taking it out on the Geniuses. New hires are barely in place before an existing burns out and the hire cycle starts again.
New Yorker
British Vogue
Telegraph (Stephen Fry)
Financial Times
Vanity Fair back to back to back years (that’s right – 3 years in a row)
Vogue
And I swear I just saw him on Oprah and Dr. Phil 😉
Some of you are not getting this. She is virtually the ONLY senior executive who NEVER gets interviewed or goes on stage somewhere. Even the CFO gets to yap at earnings Q&As. The only other one who’s so quiet is Bob Mansfield but he’s allegedly semi-retired. Given her track record as a fairly public CEO in the past, keeping a low profile is a conscious decision.
To say her job doesn’t require publicity does not make sense because Jony Ive’s job does not require it any more than hers. After all, Jony never did interviews before last two or three years. In the last 12-15 years, there have been half a dozen rare Jony Ive interviews. Even Jeff Williams is getting out there a bit. If Ive and Williams, why not Ahrendts?
Maybe just because she has nothing to do with any product at all? Which other company does push the guy/girl in charge of retail stores into the limelight, and who would care? Retail management is no function that requires a face, and people do not visit Apple Stores for the stores themselves, but for the products and services. Having a good track record in selling trench coats does not make you a computer expert…
Plus, what retail war are they talking about anyhow? Is anybody killing Apple Stores with better offerings? Does Apple only get the people who can’t get into the crowded MS store next door? Is anybody making even remotely the same revenue per square [insert preferred unit of measure]?
Does the NYT see a war everywhere now, because embedded non-journalists is all they have left? The article says more about the NYT than Apple…
You don’t get it. But that’s ok.