Finding the next person to head its gigantic retail operation with Ron Johnson leaving to run J. C. Penney, won’t be easy for Apple. The hunt is on, but the next person for the job may already be at Apple, says “Bloomberg” (http://macte.ch/5h2PO).
Johnson’s replacement faces several challenges such as implementing an ambitious expansion strategy in China while maintaining the stores’ high standards and industry-leading revenue per square foot, the article adds.
“It’s a relatively small pool of talent,” Brenda Malloy — a managing director who specializes in retail recruitment for Russell Reynolds Associates, an executive-search firm in New York — tells “Bloomberg.” Finding just the right person may be so challenging that Apple CEO Tim Cook may instead turn to someone within the company, says Neil Stern, a senior partner at McMillanDoolittle LLP, a retail consulting firm.
Only 64 companies qualify as global retailers, meaning they have US$1 billion in sales and business on at least two continents, according to Reynolds. Of those, five have total revenue in the range of Apple, which had sales of more than $108 billion last year, notes “Bloomberg” notes.
