United Continental exec hired by Apple

Former United Continental Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Zane Rowe will be joining the ranks at Apple, and will reportedly be one of the Cupertino, Calif., company's vice presidents of sales.

Rowe is leaving his position as executive vice president and CFO of United Continental Holdings Inc., the company which owns major U.S. airlines United and Continental, at which he served since the two carriers merged in 2010 for a job at Cupertino, reports All Things D.

â€œWe are thrilled that Zane Rowe will be joining us as one of our vice presidents of sales,â€ Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said. â€œHe built a great team at United and we think he is going to do a fantastic job at Apple.â€

Previous to his tenure at United Continental, Rowe first joined Continental in 1993 as a vice president of financial planning and analysis, ultimately becaming the company's executive vice president and CFO in 2008.

It is unclear as to what segment Rowe will be heading or when his term will begin.

New Apple Vice President of Sales Zane Rowe. | Source: All Things D

40 Comments

anantksundaram 20390 comments · 18 Years

About 12 years ago

CFO, financial planning and analysis, airlines...... to sales, Apple?!

ghostface147 1628 comments · 16 Years

Steve Jobs never wanted B players on his A team. I guess the current suits see things differently.

alexkhan2000 193 comments · 14 Years

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghostface147

Steve Jobs never wanted B players on his A team. I guess the current suits see things differently.

How do you know that he's a "B" player? Executive VP and CFO at United, while a little odd for a sales VP position at Apple, is a pretty impressive credential. He may be put into strictly the financial and planning aspects of sales and inventory management and stuff like that. I'm sure Apple didn't just pluck him out of the blue.

boredumb 1418 comments · 14 Years

This person may have started at Continental in 1993, but, seeing as he was only 21 then, it isn't likely that he started "as a vice president of financial planning and analysis"...

Although, if he did, maybe he does qualify as an a-list-er!

Apple does have a huge patch to manage now, but I wouldn't like to see them get too far ,or at least too often, away from the tech field, into the typical corporate "revolving musical executives" approach. I would think that that would be the most effective way quickly to dilute and destroy the unique culture of Apple.