This is part of the series Catalyst 2013.
Angela Ahrendts is the CEO of Burberry who engineered an extraordinary turnaround, beginning in 2006 when she took over. Since the interview, it was announced last week that she would be joining Apple in mid-2014 to head up its retail efforts — which sounds like a fantastic choice on Apple’s part.
At Catalyst she was interviewed about her business philosophy and other things. Here are my notes on just a few of the chief ideas from the interview.
Who is Angela Ahrendts? “We are sitting with one of the most influential CEOs in all of business.”
“I was always a dreamer. My dad told me to take off my rose-colored glasses. But I couldn’t.”
“At Burberry we always ask, ‘what do we need to do that keeps the company relevant 150 years from now?’ And that takes ego out of it, because we are all serving something greater than ourselves.”
“You can’t drive rapid innovation today unless people are free to dream.”
“I’ve always sought to live by ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ even at work. To this day, every decision I make I try to put myself in the other person’s position.”
And that last point is the most important. Based on the interview, that’s the foundational principle of her business philosophy, and I would argue that’s exactly what should be at the foundation of everyone’s business philosophy. What we see from Angela is that this clearly and decisively works. I’m looking forward to seeing how she applies her thinking at Apple.