Fired Apple Retail Boss: Here's Why I Got Canned

That's because he left the company after only about nine months on the job. While Apple did not say why Browett was leaving the company, sources briefed on the matter told Nick Wingfield and Nick Bilton of The New York Times that Browett was fired.

When Browett departed the company, we speculated that it might have had something to do with his decision to cut retail employee hours after giving everyone a raise to boost Apple's profits.

But at the Retail Week Live conference this week, Browett reflected on why he was rejected from the company, Ben Lovejoy of MacRumors reports.

"The issue there was I just didn't fit within the way they ran the business," Browett said in an interview at the Retail Week Live conference this week. "And so for me, it was one of those shocking things where you are rejected from the organization for fit rather than competency."

While that may sound a bit self-serving, another top Apple executive, Scott Forstall, left the company last year with CEO Tim Cook citing a need for more "collaboration" between the company's software, hardware, and services groups.

Browett says he learned a lot from his time at Apple: It helped him get a better sense of who he is, how he works, and what he likes to work with.

"It's probably actually the best thing that's ever happened to me," Browett says.

Before joining Apple, Browett was the chief executive of Dixons, an electronics retailer in the U.K. He returned there to run another retail chain, Monsoon Accessorize.