Each year, Bloomberg takes a look at the top earning individuals in business. Last year Angela Ahrendts came out as the highest paid female executive in the United States, as she was estimated to have made around $82.6 million dollars. If you earned that kind of money over the course of your entire life, it would be an achievement, but she made that much just in one year. So who is Angela Ahredts and how did she earn that much money?
Angela Ahrendts was born in 1960 and grew up in New Palestine, Indiana. She was the third child of six to her father Richard and her mother Jean. She attended New Palestine High School and then in 1982 she earned her undergraduate degree from Ball State University in Muncie. There she studied merchandising and marketing. After graduating from college she moved to New York City to pursue her true passion: fashion. She worked at a variety of different jobs before joining Donna Karan International back in 1989. She had a considerably successful career there before being hired over at Henri Bendel in 1996. After a brief stint with them she came over to Fifth & Pacific Companies where she served as the Vice President of Corporate Merchandising and Design. She saw a promotion to Senior Vice President in 2001 during her stay there, as she demonstrated strong business skills. But that wasn’t her best job yet.
In January of 2006, Angela Ahrendts joined the corporate team of Burberry. Just sixth months later she was promoted to the CEO of the entire company. Now, being the CEO of any company is an important deal, but being the CEO of a leading global fashion brand is an entirely different thing. She was quick to get to work at Burberry and implemented many new policies and practices. Her first order of business was to intentionally limit the number of clothing and accessories that featured the iconic Burberry check pattern, as to make them more exclusive. Her years at Burberry were extremely good. From her time there, the value of the entire company rose from $2 billion to around $7 billion. In 2012 she was the highest earning CEO in the United Kingdom as she brought in $26.3 million. Sales were good, the investors and shareholders were pleased, and she was the head honcho of the company. So why in the world would she leave? In 2013, Angela Ahrendts announced that she was going to leave Burberry to go work for Apple.
During her time at Burberry she often spoke that Apple had always been a strong influence on her business practices. During the last days at Burberry she would eventually meet Tim Cook, and the two shared a mutual appreciation for each other. Angela Ahrendts liked Tim so much that she wanted to work for Apple. So in the spring of 2014 she came over to Apple to serve as their Senior Vice President of Retail and Online stores. Now technically speaking, going from a CEO to a Senior Vice President would be a demotion, but that’s not the case for when you’re a Senior Vice President at the most valuable company in the world. While she has only been with Apple for just a year now, things seem to be going pretty good. She has a close relationship with Tim and other members of the company and she has also become the first woman on Apple’s management team. As we have mentioned, she already made $82.6 million dollars alone last year. That’s quite the salary bump when you consider what she was making over at Burberry.
So while it seems like an unlikely fit for Angela Ahrendts to be working at a tech company, when her passion growing up was all about fashion, she’s been doing a great job over at Apple. They already have a massive retail presence and their new products always break sales records, so she’s in a pretty good position. Angela Ahrendts is a classic example of not knowing where you’ll end up in life. She always saw herself in fashion, and never imagined to be working at a computer and cell phone company. You really just don’t know what life has in store for you, but Angela Ahrendts always took advantage of her opportunities and is an extremely hard worker. That’s how she became the highest paid woman in the United States.
Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images for Burberry
