Apple Updates Corporate Bylaws on Diversity Following Criticism Over Lack of Female Leaders

apple_logoApple has come under criticism from major shareholders Trillium Asset Management LLC and the Sustainability Group over the absence of women on its board and throughout its top-level rankings, reports Bloomberg.

“There is a general problem with diversity at the highest echelon of Apple,” said Jonas Kron, director of shareholder advocacy at Boston-based Trillium, which manages $1.3 billion. “It’s all white men.”

According to the report, the shareholders met with Apple representatives several times over the past few months to address the company's lack of female executives. The shareholders intended to bring the issue to a vote at Apple's shareholder meeting on February 28, but backed off once Apple agreed to address the issue through new language in the company's corporate charter [PDF link].

Apple is now adding the following language to the charter of the board’s nominating and governance committee: “The nominating committee is committed to actively seeking out highly qualified women and individuals from minority groups to include in the pool from which board nominees are chosen.”

While the statement was included in the company’s proxy for the past several years, it hadn’t been part of the company charter, a governing document. Apple also vowed to continue discussions with shareholders about ways to improve diversity, Ruoff said.

Currently, the only woman serving on Apple's board is former Avon CEO Andrea Jung, who was elected to the position in 2008. The company is also set to add Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts to its executive team in the spring, as she will become Apple's Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores.

Apple's 2014 Annual Meeting of Shareholders will take place at the company's 1 Infinite Loop headquarters on February 28, 2014 at 9:00 AM Pacific Time, where votes on eleven proposals related to director reelection, compensation, and more will be held.

Note: Due to the nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

10 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Thursday October 31, 2024 9:42 am PDT by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.2 in December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. There are a handful of new non-AI related feature controls incoming as well. ...
Apple MacBook Pro M4 Cinema 4D Slack Finder Xcode 1

Apple Announces MacBook Pro Models With M4 Pro and M4 Max Chips, Thunderbolt 5 Support, and More

Wednesday October 30, 2024 8:01 am PDT by
Apple today announced new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models featuring M4 Pro and M4 Max chips, alongside a new entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro powered by the M4 chip. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The new M4 Pro and M4 Max machines come with a minimum of 24GB of Unified Memory as standard, up from 18GB in the previous models. Both models feature three...
M4 Pro on Blue

M4 Pro Chip Benchmark Results Reveal an Extremely Impressive Performance Feat

Thursday October 31, 2024 7:06 pm PDT by
The first Geekbench 6 benchmark results for the M4 Pro chip surfaced today. Impressively, the results that are available so far show that the highest-end M4 Pro chip is faster than the highest-end M2 Ultra chip in terms of peak multi-core CPU performance. Here is a comparison of the results: Mac mini with M4 Pro (14-core CPU): 22,094 multi-core score (average of 11 results) Mac Studio...
m3 macbook air blue

Apple Announces MacBook Air Now Starts With Increased 16GB of RAM With No Price Increase

Wednesday October 30, 2024 8:04 am PDT by
Apple today in its new MacBook Pro press release announced that the MacBook Air lineup now starts with 16GB of RAM, up from 8GB previously. This change applies to the 13-inch model with the M2 chip, the 13-inch model with the M3 chip, and the 15-inch model with the M3 chip. In the U.S., the MacBook Air lineup continues to start at $999, so there is no price increase associated with the...
maxresdefault

Apple Announces Redesigned Mac Mini With M4 and M4 Pro Chips, Two Front USB-C Ports, and More

Tuesday October 29, 2024 8:01 am PDT by
Apple today announced fully redesigned Mac mini models featuring the M4 and M4 Pro chips, a considerably smaller casing, two front-facing USB-C ports, Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, and more. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The product refresh marks the first time the Mac mini has been redesigned in over a decade. The enclosure now measures just five by five inches...
M4 M4 Pro vs M4 Max Feature

Apple Announcements Recap: M4 iMac, Mac Mini, and MacBook Pro

Wednesday October 30, 2024 9:24 am PDT by
Apple this week made three key Mac product announcements: new iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro models. These machines bring the M4 chip series to Apple's Mac lineup for the first time, but each in its own way offers several new features and changes that go beyond processors. Below, we've compiled a recap of all the highlights. New iMac Apple on Monday announced its latest 24-inch iMac,...

Top Rated Comments

impulse462 Avatar
141 months ago
I don't even get it. Why not just pick whos best for the job? I can see the point if two people are equally qualified, but they keep picking older white males.

Why not try to pick who is best, before commenting on gender or other factors.
Score: 39 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Teste Avatar
141 months ago
I can see the point if two people are equally qualified, but they keep picking older white males.

You are assuming that the best in those field are not older white males.

Diversity is something that has to be changed from the bottom to upside, not the other way around. Are there qualified members of minorities to fill the positions within Apple? If yes, and they are better than those currently there, those individuals should be employed by Apple.

If not, however, Apple should not be forced to hire unqualified people just to fill some kind of "token minority" quota. In my country, for example, few women apply for engineering courses, so it's expected that there are more great engineers of the male gender than the female gender - simply because there are more male engineers than female engineers.
Score: 38 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TEG Avatar
141 months ago
The problem with "Diversity" is there may not be anyone else qualified to fill the position. The only thing worse than not having diversity, is having diversity for diversity's sake, regardless of skills. There may be qualified people to fill roles at Apple, but they may not have any interest, or for some other reason, they aren't in those positions. Forcing diversity has never helped anyone.
Score: 35 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Technarchy Avatar
141 months ago
How about just looking for the most qualified person.

Didn't Apple just hire a high ranking female?

Diversity for the sake of diversity is not a good thing.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sputnikv Avatar
141 months ago
diversity for diversity's sake is always a bad idea
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AngerDanger Avatar
141 months ago
Stories like these make me so ****ing angry! It's like they want Apple to get cooties!
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)