Mike Wuerthele
An update to Apple's executive summary page has added a few new faces and some new particulars about responsibilities — most notably the shift in responsibility for Apple's Siri to Craig Federighi, and away from services chief Eddy Cue.
Added to the page are Deirdre O'Brien as the Vice President of People. O'Brien was promoted to the position in July, and manages Apple's human relations department and Apple University. She reports directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams.
O'Brien earned a bachelor's degree in Operations Management from Michigan State University and an MBA from San Jose State University. She has been at Apple for nearly 30 years.
Isabel Ge Mahe was promoted to Apple's Vice President and Managing Director of Greater China in July. She joined Apple in 2008 as vice president of Wireless Technologies, and played a vital part in the development of China-specific features for iOS, according to Apple.
Mahe was born in Shenyang, Liaoning, and is fluent in Mandarin. She earned both Bachelor and Master of Electrical Engineering degrees from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and holds an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, where she also serves as an industry advisor to the school's EE/CS department.
Siri officially changes hands
As part of the executive profile page changes, Siri has also migrated from one executive to another. In little more than one word being shifted from one job description to another, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi is now in charge of the project.
It is not clear when precisely Federighi took command of — or directed to assume responsibility for — the technology. Prior to the shift, Senior Vice President, Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue ran the project.
Federighi has been running the Siri demonstrations at WWDC for the last two years.
AppleInsider Staff
Malcolm Owen
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
43 Comments
Moving Siri to Federighi from Cue is good. Siri is involved in a very critical technological race and should rightly be under the purview of a tech dev guy. Let Cue focus on dealmaking.
Cue is dead weight and mark my words, Jeff Williams will take the reigns from Cook once Tim leaves.
Is it ironic or predictable that the only black person on the senior leadership team is the VP for Inclusion and Diversity? Of course the alternative (a white man in that position) would have even worse optics. They should at least move her picture to the middle of the group, so it doesn't look like she was tacked on (even though it's alphabetical).