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cook (left) is good at retaining apple executives

phoenix.com technology news, september 2, beijing time, a company often faces a thorny problem in its operations, that is, the departure of key executives. however, apple has a time-tested method to deal with it: ensuring that the people who are about to leave do not actually "really leave", at least not in the short term.

last week, apple's strategy was clearly demonstrated by its cfo luca maestri.although the apple veteran will step down as cfo after the end of this year, he will remain at apple and continue to perform non-financial duties.

retire but not rest

maestri will still oversee apple's information systems and technology (is&t) division, as well as functions such as information security, real estate, and development. apple calls this division "enterprise services," which is just an umbrella term for some common departments that any large company has. however, this role is far less important than running apple's finances.

the new cfo is kevan parekh, who will take over apple's finance department on january 1 next year, including the mysterious braeburn capital asset management fund led by michael shapiro, the tax management team led by phil bullock, the internal audit team led by chris keller, and the accounting team led by chris kondo.

maestri (center) is about to retire

maestri still has several direct reports reporting to him, including timothy campos, who leads is&t, kristina raspe, who heads the real estate business, and george stathakopoulos, who oversees information security.

apple did not let maestri retire completely, but gave him a less demanding position:leading three teams that already have some of apple's strongest leaders may not require much supervision.

at the same time, the move ensures that maestri, who can continue to receive a salary while waiting for more stock to vest, will remain at the company to resolve any issues that arise and continue to advise ceo tim cook and the rest of apple's executive team, even if he may be in the office less frequently.

cook's success

keeping maestri is a win for cook and apple shareholders, and just one example of a strategy that has worked for cook since he succeeded steve jobs as apple ceo.

cook faced his first major test in 2012, less than a year after jobs’ death, when bob mansfield, apple’s highly respected hardware engineering leader, wanted to leave. after mansfield announced his retirement, cook persuaded him to stay on in a less demanding leadership role overseeing chips and wireless technologies.

cook, jobs, and mansfield

apple told employees that mansfield had agreed to stay in the role for two years. but about nine months later, in mid-2013, mansfield had handed over all responsibilities to dan riccio and johny srouji. after that, cook still employed him in a consulting capacity.

by then, mansfield no longer had any real role or decision-making power at apple, and he ultimately didn't do much consulting work.but apple told the public that mansfield was running special projects and still reporting to cook. eventually, mansfield returned three years later to run the now-defunct car project.

cook knew that having mansfield leave so soon after jobs' death would be a blow to the hardware engineering division and could alarm shareholders, so keeping mansfield around, even if mostly on paper, could help assuage concerns.

keep ivey

soon after, cook tried the strategy again with legendary apple designer jony ive, who told cook he wanted to leave apple after the first apple watch came out in 2015. cook knew ive's departure would shock investors and threaten employee morale.

so cook came up with a solution: allow ive to work one or two days a week.sometimes it was remote work, but apple would tell the public that the executive was actually promoted to chief design officer. ive was no longer involved in apple's day-to-day operations (although the company claimed he was), but he did end up doing a much larger workload than he and cook had agreed on. over the next four years, ive's name and influence remained at apple, which benefited cook greatly.

ivey and riccio

in 2020, another senior apple executive, phil schiller, was preparing to step down from his top marketing position. instead of letting schiller leave the company, cook arranged a new role called "apple fellow." schiller will continue to be in charge of the still-developing app store business and continue to be responsible for the company's famous product launches.

a year later, apple did the same thing with riccio. rather than retiring outright, the executive focused on vision pro and handed off all other hardware engineering responsibilities to others.

the vision pro team is largely led by mike rockwell, riccio's only direct report. and there were signs that riccio would leave apple in the near future. however, cook kept the veteran with at least 25 years of work experience for at least three years. for riccio, it's an exciting prospect to stay at the company with the title of vice president and participate in the development of vision pro, apple's first new product category in a decade.

cook is retiring

this scenario will continue to play out in the coming years as many apple executives approach retirement age.

among them, the three most important executive transitions involve chief operating officer jeff williams, head of the services department eddy cue, and cook himself. if williams does not leave completely, he may give up the title of chief operating officer, but continue to be responsible for apple's health and design teams. cue may retain his responsibility for the interesting parts of the business, such as apple tv+ and sports, but will give up his other responsibilities.

cook may hand over the ceo title to hardware engineering chief john ternus and then serve as apple's executive chairman.

cook also faces retirement issues

in addition to appeasing employees and shareholders, there may be another reason why cook wants to retain senior executives.that is, cook has a mixed history of hiring executives from outside companies.his first outside retail executive, john browett, was fired after six months, and his second, angela ahrendts, was controversial and left after five years.

of course, cook also has a record of successfully hiring external executives.but many of the top tech executives cook has added during his tenure were brought in by people like mansfield and riccio, including kevin lynch, the head of apple's robotics business, doug field, an automotive executive (now at ford), and john giannandrea, the head of artificial intelligence.

disadvantages

that said, keeping executives in their roles after they leave has its drawbacks. inside apple, employees say it can sometimes stifle innovative thinking and prevent the company from growing and reinventing itself. this approach may be good in the short to medium term, but it can be harmful in the long run.

today, apple doesn’t need to make major changes: it still generates about $400 billion in revenue each year from the iphone, services, and other products. however, apple has entered an era of market saturation and slow growth, and the innovative spark needed for corporate transformation is likely to come from a new generation of leaders. (author/xiao yu)

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