Angela Ahrendts

Angela Ahrendts is a leading businesswoman, who is famed for her work with some of the largest consumer goods and fashion brands of the modern market. From Ralph Lauren to Burberry and Apple, Angela’s repertoire epitomises creating an outstanding customer journey and experience for all that shop at such establishments. With such experience, Angela is now often booked as a speaker for a range of corporate events, popular for her ability to speak about business growth and the retail industry.

Throughout her career, Angela has widely been recognised as one of the most powerful women in the world, best known for being the former CEO of Burberry and the Senior Vice President of Retail for Apple. During her time at Apple, Angela is widely remembered for intertwining the digital and physical in-store business to ensure that customers had the most enjoyable experience during their purchases. With Burberry, Angela was part of the team during the pivotal time that Burberry was positioned as a luxury brand and oversaw significant business growth for the best part of a decade. She was also formerly a member of the UK Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council.

Before rising to fame with luxury brands, Angela graduated from the Ball State University with a degree in Merchandising and Marketing. To follow her passions of working in the fashion industry, Angela made the move to New York where she began working in merchandising for Warnaco. Before long, Angela landed a role with a designer brand, ultimately becoming the President of Donna Karan International (DKNY). She later moved on to become the Executive Vice President of Liz Claiborne before she was appointed CEO of Burberry in 2006.

During her time with Burberry, Angela made significant changes such as reducing the number of products with the iconic Burberry print, buying back the company’s fragrance and beauty licenses and buying out other franchises that had previously brought into Burberry. She is also widely remembered for helping to increase the value of the brand to £7 billion, with its previous value standing at £2 billion. Today, Angela is acting as a board member for many prominent brands and organisations, such as the Ralph Lauren Corporation, Charity: Water, WPP Plc and Airbnb. She is also a board member of HOW Institute for Society and is Chair of the board for Save The Children.

Throughout her career, Angela’s hard work has been recognised with numerous awards. She has been appointed DBE for Services to British Business and claimed the Outstanding Leadership Award at the Oracle World Retail Awards. She has also been the recipient of the St George’s Society of New York Medal of Honour and Financial Times Women of 2013. Many top publications have noticed her work too, with Forbes naming her as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World for seven years and Fortune naming her as one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business for six years.

With such a credible career behind her, Angela is now often booked as a speaker for a range of corporate and public events. A seasoned speaker, Angela has previously been invited to speak at TEDxHollywood with a speech titled The Power of Human Energy. From increasing Burberry’s market value to improving the customer experience at Apple, Angela Ahrendts has a wealth of business experience and is the perfect addition to conferences and events.