 Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Companies often struggle with the departure of key executives, but Apple has a time-tested way to deal with it: make sure that the person quitting doesn't actually leave. That approach was on full display last week with the departure of Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri. Though the Apple veteran is exiting his role as CFO after the end of this year, he'll be sticking around the company and holding on to his non-finance responsibilities. Maestri will still oversee Information Systems and Technology unit, better known as IS&T, in addition to its information security and real estate and development functions. The company is calling this group Corporate Services, though that's just an umbrella term for some fairly typical divisions at any major company. And it's not as big a deal as running the tech giant's finances. The new CFO, Kevan Parekh, will take over Apple's finance groups on Jan. 1. That includes the secretive Braeburn Capital asset management fund led by Michael Shapiro, a tax management team run by Phil Bullock, an internal audit group headed by Chris Keller and the accounting team led by Chris Kondo.  Apple's outgoing chief financial officer, Luca Maestri (center). Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Maestri will still have a few direct reports, including Timothy Campos (IS&T), Kristina Raspe (real estate) and George Stathakopoulos (information security). Instead of letting Maestri fully retire, he'll have a less demanding role: being the boss of three groups that already have some of Apple's strongest leaders and probably don't need much oversight. At the same time, the approach ensures that Maestri will still be around to fix any problems and continue to give counsel to Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and other members of Apple's executive team — even if he's potentially coming into the office less frequently. Maestri gets to remain on the payroll and let more of his shares vest. For Cook and Apple shareholders, this is a win. And it's just one example of the strategy that the CEO has employed since taking over for Steve Jobs. In 2012, less than a year after the death of Jobs, Cook was faced with his big first personnel test. Bob Mansfield, a highly regarded hardware engineering leader, wanted to leave. After announcing the retirement, Cook persuaded Mansfield to remain in a smaller role overseeing silicon and wireless technologies.  Bob Mansfield (right), alongside Tim Cook and Steve Jobs. Photographer: Getty Images Apple told employees that Mansfield agreed to be in that role for two years. But about nine months later, around the middle of 2013, Mansfield had transferred all of his responsibilities to Dan Riccio and Johny Srouji. After that, Cook still kept him on payroll as a consultant. By then, Mansfield had no real role or decision-making power, and he ultimately didn't do much consulting. But Apple told the public that Mansfield was handling special projects and still reporting to Cook. (Mansfield ultimately did return three years later to run the now-defunct car project.) Cook knew that letting Mansfield leave so soon after Jobs' death would be a blow to the hardware engineering organization and potentially alarm shareholders. So keeping Mansfield around — even if it was mostly just on paper — helped ease concerns. Cook tried this strategy again with Jony Ive, the company's legendary designer. Around 2015, after shipping the original Apple Watch, Ive informed Cook that he wanted to step back. The CEO knew that such a move would jar investors and threaten employee morale.  Apple's Jony Ive and Dan Riccio. Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America So he came up with a solution: allow Ive to work one to two days per week — sometimes remotely — but tell the public that the executive was actually being promoted to chief design officer. Ive was no longer involved in Apple day-to-day operations (despite the company telling the world he was), though he did end up working well more than what he and Cook had agreed to. And Cook benefited by keeping Ive's name and influence at Apple another four years. Fast forward to 2020. That's when another Apple lifer, Phil Schiller, was ready to step down from the top marketing job. Instead of letting Schiller leave the building, Cook crafted a new role under the Apple fellow title. Schiller would keep his hold on the still-evolving App Store business and continue working on the company's famous product launch presentations. A year later, Apple used the same move with Riccio. Instead of fully retiring, the executive shed all of his hardware engineering responsibilities other than the Vision Pro. The team responsible for the headset is essentially led by Riccio's only direct report — Mike Rockwell — and signs point to Riccio making a break from Apple in the not-too-distant future. But Cook got to keep Riccio, a 25-year veteran, at least an extra three years. For his part, Riccio remained on the company payroll with a vice president business card and got to work on Apple's first new product category in a decade — an exciting prospect.  Apple's Jeff Williams. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg We'll likely see similar scenarios play out in the coming years. After all, many top executives are nearing retirement age. In May, I detailed who the likely successors are for this old guard at Apple.
Three of the biggest transitions will involve Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, services head Eddy Cue and — of course — Cook himself. If Williams doesn't make a clean exit, he can probably give up the COO title but stay in charge of Apple's health and design groups. Cue could hold on to the fun part of the business — things like Apple TV+ and sports — but give up the rest of his organization. And Cook will probably become Apple's executive chairman when he hands off the CEO job to hardware engineering chief John Ternus. Besides the need to placate employees and shareholders, there's likely another reason for wanting to keep longtime executives in the fold. Cook's track record of hiring top executives from outside Apple is mixed. His first external retail hire — John Browett — was fired after six months, while his second, Angela Ahrendts, was controversial and left after five years. There are exceptions — like environment and government relations chief Lisa Jackson, General Counsel Kate Adams and Maestri — but many of the top technical executives added during Cook's tenure were brought in by people like Mansfield and Riccio. That includes Apple robotics leader Kevin Lynch, auto executive Doug Field (now at Ford Motor Co.) and artificial intelligence boss John Giannandrea. That said, keeping executives around after they step down can have its drawbacks. Within Apple, employees say it can sometimes stifle thinking, preventing the company from evolving and reinventing itself. The approach may be good in the short to medium term, but harmful in the long run. Apple doesn't need to make drastic changes today: It's still generating roughly $400 billion a year from the iPhone, services and other products. But the company has reached an era of market saturation and slow growth. And the spark required to transform the business will probably come from a new generation of leaders. | 
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