deniseyoungsmithDenise Young Smith, Apple's current vice president of diversity and inclusion, plans to leave Apple at the end of this year, reports TechCrunch. Smith was promoted to her position in May of 2017, and prior to that, she was in human resources.

Smith, who has been with Apple for more than 20 years, reports directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Prior to Smith's promotion, Apple had a head of diversity and inclusion, but her role was an executive level role with more responsibility.

Christie Smith, who was with Deloitte for 17 years as a Client Advisory Principal, will be taking over the position. Smith's LinkedIn profile says she has 28 years of experience building and leading high performance teams with expertise in "talent management, analytics, inclusion & belonging, leadership, organizational design, performance management, coaching, change management and culture."

In a statement to TechCrunch, Apple said the company is thrilled to welcome Christie Smith to the team.

"We deeply believe that diversity drives innovation. We're thrilled to welcome an accomplished leader like Christie Smith to help us continue the progress we've made toward a more diverse workplace."

Smith will report to Apple's vice president of people Deirdre O'Brien, and has reportedly been speaking with Tim Cook since about a year ago. Apple has been looking for a replacement for Denise Young Smith for the last several months.

After departing Apple, Denise Young Smith will become an executive in residence at Cornell starting this January. She will work with students to "build an early career-stage awareness of inclusive leadership and diverse talent."

Note: Due to the political 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.

Top Rated Comments

modemthug Avatar
100 months ago
It’s absurd that this is even a thing
Score: 43 Votes (Like | Disagree)
thadoggfather Avatar
100 months ago
A lot of rational people believe diversity and inclusion can drive performance.
People should get jobs based on their skill set and job history, etc

Not their ethnicity, ie something they didn’t have a say in (what heritage they were born into) and which has nothing to do with anything

Forcefully hitting diversity quotas is racist and A delusional progressive agenda

Imo
Score: 42 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Arkanok Avatar
100 months ago
Most useless job title I’ve ever seen.
Score: 42 Votes (Like | Disagree)
freelancing Avatar
100 months ago
While this isn't necessarily relevant, I did meet her once. I used to work at the Apple Store in Plano, TX, which was the 3rd store in the world to open. She flew into Dallas to meet the staff and was introduced to everyone. She seemed nice and was amazingly tall. She seriously has to be at least 7 feet tall. Later in the day, she was walking out of the store and her husband was coming in and he was a head taller than her. She seemed to go out of her way to not tower over people with a gentle grace. She reported directly to Steve Jobs at the time. She was very warm to the staff and down to earth.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chucker23n1 Avatar
100 months ago
It’s absurd that this is even a thing
Indeed. How is discrimination still a thing in 2017?

But, well, it is. And will be for a while. So we need positions like hers.
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chriscrk Avatar
100 months ago
Cue people complaining and arguing that people should be hired on merit and not race, as if there isn't currently a deep rooted problem regarding diversity that already affects the hiring process!
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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