Apple HR head Denise Young Smith takes up new role as VP for 'Inclusion and Diversity'
Apple's human resources leader -- Denise Young Smith -- has taken up a new role within the company as its VP for Inclusion and Diversity, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The profile still lists her as in charge of HR as well, and in fact the new title isn't reflected on Apple's executive bios page. Apple is likely to correct the information in the near future.
The company has never before had a VP at the helm of its Inclusion and Diversity efforts. Smith however has a strong interest in the area, according to 9to5Mac sources, who added that while the company is looking for a new HR head, CFO Luca Maestri will temporarily step in. Smith is expected to report directly to CEO Tim Cook.
Apple has only publicly disclosed diversity data since 2014, responding to pressure from rights groups. The company's most recent data -- from June 2016 -- found that it was 68 percent male and 32 percent female, but in the U.S., still predominantly white.
This is epecially true at the company's highest levels, since Smith is the only non-white senior executive. There are two non-white people on the board of directors, James Bell and Andrea Jung.
Out of 26 people across Apple's top levels, only five are women.
Apple has increasingly tried to be multiracial not just internally but in its marketing. More dark-skinned people now appear in product photos as well as the company's video ads.
The profile still lists her as in charge of HR as well, and in fact the new title isn't reflected on Apple's executive bios page. Apple is likely to correct the information in the near future.
The company has never before had a VP at the helm of its Inclusion and Diversity efforts. Smith however has a strong interest in the area, according to 9to5Mac sources, who added that while the company is looking for a new HR head, CFO Luca Maestri will temporarily step in. Smith is expected to report directly to CEO Tim Cook.
Apple has only publicly disclosed diversity data since 2014, responding to pressure from rights groups. The company's most recent data -- from June 2016 -- found that it was 68 percent male and 32 percent female, but in the U.S., still predominantly white.
This is epecially true at the company's highest levels, since Smith is the only non-white senior executive. There are two non-white people on the board of directors, James Bell and Andrea Jung.
Out of 26 people across Apple's top levels, only five are women.
Apple has increasingly tried to be multiracial not just internally but in its marketing. More dark-skinned people now appear in product photos as well as the company's video ads.
Comments
Also, "diversity" is just pandering. Hire people based on their skills and the absurd focus on skin color and other collectivist talking points becomes irrelevant.
There is a reason why gender, ethnic and even equality in class and for people with disabilities is so hard to get.
There is a crapload of sexist, misogynist, racist, xenophobic anti anything that's not them all around, that includes people at every level in most companies.
Those people will not clearly advertise the way their bias affect their decisions, but they do and so its not that simple to ferret them out when you hire them or later unless you have transparent reporting systems in places when clear lines of responsibilities with unimpeachable people at their cores..
Putting a VP in there, especially one that's at the head of something that's by Cook's own admission critical to Apple's future, means this is NOT some peripheral goal of Apple but a central one. It is even possible she lobbied for the creation of this as a means to resolve current issues.
BTW, quoting that piece of shit Thatcher who was pandering to her base non stop while supposedly "telling it like is is" (sic) must be a joke cause it mostly undermines your point.
If someone at my company were to tell me that I was hired because I was of a certain ethnic group, and not because of my skill/talent, I would get pissed off.
I guess, that is how they combat that pesky wage gap /s
Is Lisa Jackson not a senior executive?
If you think about skin color/ethnicity, when you hire people, you are racist by definition. Whether you don't hire people just because they are, say, black is just as bad as hiring people exclusively because they are black, and not because they simply possess needed skills/traits.
If you have 50 white guy programmers, and you have two final candidates of equal skill but one is an asian woman, you'd do well to hire the asian woman, since the more diversity you have in your team the more ideas and perspectives will be brought to the product development cycle.
Nope. It's just what white males can't stand to listen to because you've been on top. Even the thought of breaking up the mono-culture upsets you.
Is there peer-reviewed science that proves men like tech and women like biology, and that any sort of pattern there isn't cultural? Seems absurd to me.
My SO is in science/biology and the top roles are headed by...men.
How rich -- you're already claiming this black woman didn't earn her position high up within Apple and got it by scheming, not merit. Do you not even see it? Your own bias is right there....What evidence do you have that this woman didn't earn her coveted position? None. None is the evidence you have.