Burberry CEO is the highest paid woman in America

Born in New York and having been at the helm of Burberry since 2006, Angela Ahrendts has transformed the British brand into one of the world's most successful fashion labels. She is the epitome of the "From Zero to Hero" story.

Angela Ahrendts was born into a family of six siblings in New Palestine, India. From a young age, she expressed her creativity, creating artistic images from fashion magazines and turning the bottom of her closet into her own artistic oasis.

Angela Ahrendts - talented female CEO.

After graduating from high school, Ahrendts enrolled in Indiana State University to study fashion design. However, she quickly abandoned this dream because she realized she lacked the core qualities of a designer.

A professor advised her: “Your path to success is the path of commercializing fashion.” And Ahrendts changed her career path to fashion business management.

The day after graduation, she boarded a plane to New York to begin her career. During her teenage years, she worked up to 80 hours a week at Donna Karan and Liz Claiborne, the top fashion houses in New York. She later became president of Donna Karan International and executive vice president of Liz Claiborne Inc.

Her lover then left Indiana for New York. They got married and had three children together. When life had just stabilized, Ahrendts received an invitation from Rose Marie Bravo, former CEO of Burberry, asking her to come to England to join this 160-year-old fashion empire. Ahrendts said she immediately refused because of many concerns as a mother and wife.

However, due to Bravo's persistence, Ahrendts finally flew to England. She told herself, this must be the right decision.

She steered Burberry through its most difficult times.

One of the things that convinced Ahrendts was Burberry’s rich cultural history, but she was disappointed when she arrived in London and saw how little affection the executive team had for the brand.

Many of them, despite getting a high discount on the product and it being very suitable for the British weather, do not wear Burberry clothes.

For a long time, Burberry had been associated with a bad image. Ahrendts had to work hard with creative director Christopher Bailey to refresh Burberry's image in the eyes of consumers. Every design had to be carefully checked by Bailey before being produced. And that was where Burberry's turning point came from.

Bringing the brand back from the brink was a difficult and laborious task. Before Ahrendts took over, Burberry had sold 23 licenses to corporations to use Burberry’s image on their products, including disposable pet pads. Ahrendts said that her first few years on the job felt like buying back these licenses. It was exhausting, but she knew it was necessary work to effectively manage the image and that she needed to do it as soon as possible to return Burberry to its original purity.

Ahrendts faced many difficulties at first. She decided to completely change the situation at Burberry, such as firing the Hong Kong design team, closing factories in New Jersey and South Wales to concentrate production in one place... The factory closure caused a political storm, to the point that Ahrendts had to explain before the British Parliament. But in the end, everyone had to admit that she was right.

Angela Ahrendts has been instrumental in reviving the iconic British fashion brand.

Ahrendts’s hard work paid off. Burberry’s reputation improved dramatically during her tenure. Not only did she restore Burberry’s beautiful fashion heritage, boost digital media, and create groundbreaking new products, she also produced compelling numbers: Burberry’s annual revenue more than doubled from 2007 to 2012, and its stock price doubled from 2006 to 2012.

Speaking of Ahrendts, Justine Picardie, Editor-in-Chief of Harper's Bazaar UK, said that Ahrendts not only revived Burberry but also helped the entire British fashion industry succeed by putting London back on the map of high fashion. After Burberry's recovery, Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour came to London for fashion week after a long absence. Designers also flocked here to be the first to admire Burberry's creations.

After completing her mission with Burberry, in October 2013, Angela Ahrendts was invited by Apple to become CEO of the retail division.

Bloomberg recently released its list of the highest-paid women in the United States, and Angela Ahrendts topped the list with an income of $82.6 million. This amount includes annual salary, bonuses, and money from her remaining shares in Burberry.

According to PNVN