Mikey Campbell
Former Apple executive Ron Johnson, who cultivated the highly successful Apple Store retail initiative, is leading a $16 million investment round for online retailer Nasty Gal, marking his return to the fashion industry.
Along with his role in funding, Johnson will join the Los Angeles-based retailer's board of directors as the company builds out a fledgling brick-and-mortar presence, Re/code reported late Thursday. Currently, Nasty Gal operates a single store on Melrose Ave., but plans are in motion to build a second location, possibly with the help of Johnson.
It seems Nasty Gal has at least one other tie to Apple, as founder Sophia Amoruso told the publication she was introduced to Johnson more than one year ago by James Higa of Index Ventures, an existing investor that also contributed to the latest funding round.
Higa started at Apple Japan as director of product marketing from 1984 to 1985, then moved to NeXT in 1989 before leaving the company for RealNetworks in 1996. He returned to Apple in 2001 to work directly under late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs as a senior office director until 2012. His LinkedIn profile describes the latter position as "Special Ops for Steve."
Johnson would discuss Nasty Gal's progress with Higa, who he knew from Apple, and even visited the retailer's first physical store to offer advice to Amoruso when it opened last fall, the report said.
It is unclear how Johnson will split his time between Nasty Gal and duties as chief executive of a startup called Enjoy, which aims to help online shoppers make purchasing decisions. The nuts and bolts behind Enjoy are unknown as the startup has not yet launched.
While at Apple, Johnson was responsible for incubating and realizing the Apple Store concept, which is now one of the company's main sources of revenue. He left Cupertino in 2011 to take on the role of CEO at J.C. Penney, but was drummed out unceremoniously in early 2013 after the department store suffered heavy losses.
Marko Zivkovic
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30 Comments
1. I don’t envision ever wanting my gal to be nasty, so I’m not sure to whom this caters.
2. Their bastardization of an Apple Store facade is pretty nasty.
Why would I want a $78 shirt when I can go to a Big & Tall and get a 6XL white T-shirt for, what, $20?
And by ‘I’ I mean women.
EDIT: And by women I mean ‘as distinct from men, one of which I am’. And by that I mean I probably should have just thrown ‘women’ in the original sentence.
Then again, they’ll spend hundreds on a purse, so what do I know. And by ‘I’ I mean ‘made you look’.
The new job is a huge step down from his days at Apple. Not the kind of career trajectory for him that one might expect.
Johnson probably could've taken over the CEO position at American Apparel since Dov Charney was kicked out.
What the hell? Ron probably has what is essentially an unlimited amount of money from his holdings in Apple. I can understand him wanting to take the lead, but he already botched (big time) JCPenney's and now he's looking to run a brand that frankly, sounds like some skank shop?
Take a breather Ron. Take some of that money you made at Apple and go find yourself. This is simply put, embarrassing.
You'd have to have brain damage to hire that guy after what he did at JC Penney.