by Dan Moren
Apple’s head of Diversity and Inclusion has left
Bloomberg’s Shelly Banjo and Mark Gurman:
“Inclusion and diversity are core Apple values and we deeply believe the most diverse teams are the most innovative teams,” Apple said in an emailed statement confirming the news. “Christie Smith will be leaving Apple to spend more time with her family and we wish her well. Our Inclusion and Diversity team continues to report directly to Deirdre O’Brien on the Executive Team.”
Just last week, Tim Cook announced that Apple would be rolling out a $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, which aims to not only increase minority representation with the company’s suppliers and support black application developers, but also to improve diversity and inclusion inside Apple.
As with many other tech companies, Apple regularly releases information about the composition of its company, although its most recent numbers are from December 2018.
No replacement for Smith has been named. It’s possible that this raises the profile of this team, by having them report directly to senior vice president Deirdre O’Brien, but as she also oversees retail and human resources operations at the company, it seems as though this might be overloading one person with a lot of responsibilities when this should be a concern shared amongst all of the executive team.