Ron Johnson

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* Apple Senior Vice President Ron Johnson, the guy largely credited for masterminding the Apple Store retail experience, is reportedly leaving for J.C. Penney, where he'll be the franchise's new president and eventual chief executive. In some ways, the move may not be all that surprising -- Johnson actually MORE

The man who built the Apple Stores leaves for J.C. Penney

Ron Johnson, who came to Apple from Target, is headed back to his retail roots

Among the senior vice presidents on whom Steve Jobs depends to run Apple (AAPL), three stand out: Tim Cook, the master of Apple's supply chain; Jony Ive, its genius designer; and Ron Johnson, the man who built the Apple Store.

Jobs is reportedly losing one of them today. According to the Wall Street Journal, J.C. Penney (JCP) MORE

Katy Huberty visits Apple

Leaves meeting with three top execs with "increasing confidence" in a $540 price target

Katheryn ("Katy") Huberty, Morgan Stanley's chief Apple analyst, met recently with three of Steve Jobs' top lieutenants: Peter Oppenheimer, the money man; Ron Johnson, the former Target exec who built the Apple Stores; and Eddy Cue, the senior vice president in charge of Internet services.

Apparently no company secrets were revealed. The Apple execs would not confirm that MORE

$44 million for Mr. Genius Bar

Another big payday for Apple's senior vice president for retail

Ron Johnson, the man Steve Jobs hired from Target (TGT) to create the Apple Store -- and who famously persuaded his boss, over Jobs' initial objections, to include a Genius Bar -- has joined the string of top Apple (AAPL) executives taking advantage of the stock's recent run-up to cash in some options.

According to an SEC Form 4 filed Saturday, Johnson MORE

Apple plants its flagship in Shanghai

With its second -- and largest by far -- store in China, Apple sends a message to the market

Apple (AAPL) made its first foray into retail sales in China just before the 2008 Olympic games with a standard-size Apple Store set in a newly constructed Beijing retail development called the Village at Sanlitun.

Its second Chinese Apple Store, which opened Saturday amid the luxury shops in Shanghai's gleaming financial district, is MORE

Apple officers sell off 1 million shares

COO Tim Cook clears $68 million before taxes; CFO Peter Oppenheimer, $46 million

Apple's senior staff had a busy -- and profitable -- trading day Thursday.

More than a million restricted shares of Apple (AAPL) stock that seven of them were granted on Dec. 14, 2005 became fully vested Wednesday. The next day, with Apple opening at an all-time record high, four of them sold off all those shares pursuant, as the MORE

Inside Apple's new New York City store

A sneak peek at Manhattan's fourth Apple Store, set to open Saturday Nov. 14

The Upper West Side, that bastion of liberal thinking and discretionary spending nestled between Central Park and the Hudson River on the island of Manhattan, is finally getting its own Apple Store.

The retail outlet -- Apple's 279th and the city's fourth -- is scheduled to open Saturday morning. On Thursday, the press got an early tour of MORE

After Steve Jobs: Handicapping Apple's back bench

"You know, I think it wouldn't be a party," Steve Jobs told Fortune in February, describing the future of his company if, as he put it, Jobs got hit by a bus. "But there are really capable people at Apple. ... My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors."

Life at Apple without Jobs may be more than just a hypothetical. The 53-year-old Silicon Valley MORE