The position/department seems to have more tasks related to it than just some sort of glorified affirmative action, which seems to be what most of the critical voices here are obsessed with. Much of her skillset is related to teamwork and the development of collaborative spaces that encourage the diverse workers at Apple to actually work together and to their best...I work at a university, for example, which has many talented students from different countries. Some integrate among the general student body and others self-segregate. You can see it at the cafeteria where a group of students from country X all sit together and speak in their own language. Some rarely get outside their comfort zone. I imagine they are doing great with their studies, but missing out on a whole lot of other opportunities to develop and practice useful skills and learn new things and network with people. I guess my thoughts are that Apple is a tremendously large company that serves a tremendously large consumer base composed of all sorts of people. Diversity and inclusion are a vital component to the kind of company Apple is and the economic growth its been capable of. Diversity is not only something that can make such a big company richer given the variety of backgrounds and identities that can inform their business, ideas for their products, coding, and their knowledge of different identities of consumers and relevant marketing, but it's also something that merely is a reality there with many different kinds of people working together and different offices and stores in different countries who must collaborate with the central administration...the inclusion part is key, as my example above illustrates...When we fall into comfortable routines, we may be missing out on opportunities that collaboration offers. If diversity and inclusion as they relate to interpersonal communication and collaborative tasks is a big part of management and engineering training, maybe a position or department like hers may be redundant. But, if not, then it's vital that someone is able to provide input regarding these things from a perspective that values it deeply, as you develop corporate policies and procedures for collaboration or at least training for those who decide on such policies and procedures...then you can listen to or disregard that perspective. I imagine, too, that given all the employing that Apple does, it's vital they have someone to provide training that seeks to avoid any outright violations of civil rights or discrimination in order to protect themselves from legal action.
