Could be taking on retail responsibility

Sharp-eyed observers at TheNextWeb have noticed that Apple has subtly altered Senior Vice President Phil Schiller's title on Apple's leadership page, possibly representing changes being made internally to expand his role to also cover retail operations, formerly the territory of recently-departed head of retail Ron Johnson, who left Apple to head up JC Penney. Schiller was head of worldwide product marketing, and is now head of worldwide marketing.

The change, while small semantically, could signal a major shift if Schiller does indeed take on responsibility for the Apple Retail Store chain, which generates over $10 billion in revenue annually. He is already responsible for Apple's worldwide branding, advertising campaigns and other aspects of Apple's public image. He has also emerged over the years as one of the company's best presenters and spokespersons, often handling at least some portion of product roll-outs and even developer presentations.

Following Johnson's departure, the company has not appeared to be actively seeking a replacement and may have decided to consolidate retail under the marketing division. Schiller has been with Apple for over 17 years in various capacities, and has worked extensively with most of the current management team since 1997 when Steve Jobs returned to Apple. [via TheNextWeb]

by MacNN Staff