(FILES) A file picture taken in London on November 9,...

(FILES) A file picture taken in London on November 9, 2010, shows CEO of Burberry Angela Ahrendts addressing delegates at the Heritage Luxury conference. British luxury fashion group Burberry on Tuesday October 15, 2013, said its long-serving Chief Executive Officer Angela Ahrendts will step down next year to take up a new position with Apple. AFP PHOTO / LEON NEAL/FILESLEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images Credit: Getty LEON NEAL

Apple Inc. hired Burberry Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Angela Ahrendts as head of retail operations, ending a yearlong search and adding the first woman to its 10-member executive team.

Ahrendts, 53, will oversee Apple’s more than 400 retail outlets and its online store, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company said today. Apple is tapping an U.S. executive who more than doubled Burberry’s sales since 2006, rejuvenating the brand partly by embracing the Internet and social networks.

At Apple stores, started by co-founder Steve Jobs in 2001, hundreds of millions of visitors a year test the latest iPhones and iPads, giving it an advantage over Google Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and Microsoft Corp. The challenge for Ahrendts is to fend off rivals such as Samsung, which has overtaken Apple in smartphone sales and is also opening its own stores.

“Ahrendts has always been incredibly focused on the digital side of the business,” said John Guy, an analyst at Berenberg bank in London. “If she was going to go anywhere from Burberry, it would be to that area.”

Ahrendts will join Apple in the spring of 2014, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. Apple, the world’s most valuable company, has been without a full-time retail chief since last October, when former retail head John Browett was ousted by Cook as part of a broader management shakeup.

Transforming Burberry

In almost eight years at London-based Burberry, Ahrendts extended a transformation started by her predecessor Rose Marie Bravo. She started streaming fashion shows live on the Web, allowing customers to order items online during the events. The shares have gained in excess of threefold during her tenure.

Ahrendts, who previously worked as executive vice president at New York-based Liz Claiborne Inc. and president of Donna Karan International, will now return to an American company. She will be the 10th member of Apple’s executive team, joining the likes of design guru Jonathan Ive and marketing head Phil Schiller.

Ahrendts’s compensation for the year ending March 31 was valued at 3.26 million pounds ($5.2 million), according to Burberry’s annual report. Apple executives dominate the list of highest paid U.S. executives.

Christopher Bailey, who for the past six years has been chief creative officer at Burberry, the largest British luxury-goods producer, will replace Ahrendts as CEO.

‘Marketing Operation’

Apple’s stores earn more than high-end retail outlets like Tiffany & Co. and give the company a way to promote and teach customers about its products. The company generated $4.1 billion in revenue from its retail stores in the third quarter, with 84 million shoppers visiting its outlets.

Its first head of retail was Ron Johnson, who left in 2011 to become CEO of JC Penney Co., a job he was later fired from after disappointing sales. Ahrendts takes the helm as Apple is opening more stores outside the U.S. to drive growth, including in China.

“Apple stores are a self-funding marketing operation,” said Benedict Evans, an analyst with Enders Analysis in London. “She’s about delivering a great experience, with the right economics.”

Ahrendts’s experience overseeing a luxury brand is especially important for Apple, Evans said. By contrast, Browett came from a retail background more focused on cost savings that didn’t mesh with Apple, he said. Cook had been overseeing the company’s stores in the absence of a full-time executive.

Earlier Cooperation

Ahrendts has long championed the integration of technology and fashion. Burberry streamed a fashion show globally live last month using Apple’s new iPhone 5s. She helped push Burberry to team up with Twitter Inc. to stay on the cusp of technology by posting backstage photos of a runway show on the social-networking service.

“You’re going to see relationships with technology across anything that’s brand,” Ahrendts told Bloomberg Television last month. “I don’t care if that’s in home or what you wear. I just think it’s a new fact of life.”

As technological differences between smartphones become less apparent to most customers, Apple’s marketing and retail experience gives it an advantage over competitors, said Richard Windsor, an independent analyst with Radio Free Mobile.

Shopping Experience

“This it yet another move to strengthen the brand and retail experience,” he said. “The technological edge seems to be stabilizing and now Apple looks to be trying to differentiate through its brand and the experience the consumer enjoys when he or she walks through the door.”

This isn’t Apple’s first hire this year of a CEO of a luxury clothing company. In July, Apple hired Paul Deneve, the former CEO of luxury fashion house Yves St Laurent Group, to work on special projects for Cook.

The addition of fashion-house expertise comes as Apple is developing a wrist-watch-like computing device, people familiar with the work have said.

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