Ahrendts the current CEO of Burberry will head up Apple's online and brick and mortar retail stores starting in mid 2014.
The CEO of a high fashion brand may not sound like an obvious fit for a tech giant. But Ahrendts has garnered widespread respect for turning around Burberry particularly for expanding its presence in Asia a market that Apple has yet to conquer.
Ahrendts 52 also injected a decidedly tech focused strategy into Burberry's operations leveraging both social tools like Facebook (FB Fortune 500) and enterprise software from Salesforce (CRM) and SAP (SAP). Ahrendts will fill an important role at Apple (AAPL Fortune 500) which has lacked a retail chief since John Browett was fired in October 2012.
Beyond Ahrendts' wealth of experience the simple fact that she is a woman will also bridge a serious gap at Apple.
Like many tech companies Apple's executive suite is strikingly homogenous Nine white men currently serve as executives including CEO Tim Cook and eight senior vice presidents. Ahrendts will be Apple's ninth senior VP.
Ahrendts isn't the first or highest ranking female executive in Apple's history however. Deborah Coleman served at Apple for 11 years through 1992 in a variety of high ranking positions chief financial officer VP of operations and VP of information systems and technology.
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Females are better represented at the vice president level at Apple with women currently serving as VPs in fields like operations communications and accounting. Andrea Jung the former CEO of Avon (AVP Fortune 500) is the sole female director on Apple's eight person board.
The lack of diversity in regard to both gender and ethnicity at large tech companies continues to spark debate. The latest high profile flap came after Twitter filed for an initial public offering without a female board director.
Apple's appointment of Ahrendts who was the highest paid CEO in the U.K. last year does a small bit to help that problem. But there's a negative flip side to Ahrendts stepping down from a CEO role to become a senior VP Her resignation from Burberry will leave Britain's FTSE 100 stock index with just two female CEOs.
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