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Bloomberg: Apple Loses Two Veteran Operations Executives

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Apple has lost two long-serving operations executives, including its VP in charge of manufacturing design and a longtime iPhone operations executive who moved to its AR division, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

appleparknovember.jpg

Nick Forlenza, a vice president of manufacturing design, has retired from Apple, while Duco Pasmooij, another vice president who worked on operations, is discussing an exit in the near future, according to people familiar with the moves. Pasmooij left the operations team over a year ago, moving into a role reporting to the company's head of augmented reality efforts, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing personnel.
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According to the report, Forlenza had worked under Sabih Kahn, Apple's senior VP of operations, as an executive in charge of manufacturing design. Forlenza led a team of supply chain and operations executives responsible for global production processes and manufacturing equipment.

Pasmooij helped lead production operations for the iPhone for many years, but had recently reported to Mike Rockwell, the vice president in charge of augmented reality and virtual reality efforts. The personnel moves aren't related to each other, nor to the recent supply chain disruptions owing to the coronavirus outbreak, according Gurman's sources.

Apple has about 100 vice presidents who help CEO Tim Cook and the senior executive team run the company.

Article Link: Bloomberg: Apple Loses Two Veteran Operations Executives
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/02/27/apple-loses-two-operations-executives/
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I would like to know how many VPs were monitoring quality control of software (macOS) and of hardware (keyboard). Those dudes need to be elevated to Senior VPs following the Peter Principle./s

"The Peter Principle is an observation that the tendency in most organizational hierarchies, such as that of a corporation, is for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach a level of respective incompetence."
 
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nylonsteel said:
whoa - interesting to hear approx. 100 vp's at aapl - thats a lot
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So when the president steps down do they have a battle royale to decide who gets bumped up to president? Because I'd be down to buy the PPV of that.
 
MacRumors said:



Apple has lost two long-serving operations executives, including its VP in charge of manufacturing design and a longtime iPhone operations executive who moved to its AR division, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

appleparknovember.jpg

According to the report, Forlenza had worked under Sabih Kahn, Apple's senior VP of operations, as an executive in charge of manufacturing design. Forlenza led a team of supply chain and operations executives responsible for global production processes and manufacturing equipment.

Pasmooij helped lead production operations for the iPhone for many years, but had recently reported to Mike Rockwell, the vice president in charge of augmented reality and virtual reality efforts. The personnel moves aren't related to each other, nor to the recent supply chain disruptions owing to the coronavirus outbreak, according Gurman's sources.

Apple has about 100 vice presidents who help CEO Tim Cook and the senior executive team run the company.

Article Link: Bloomberg: Apple Loses Two Veteran Operations Executives
Click to expand...

Is it just me, or if you look at this picture at a certain angle does it look like the facility is some sort of flying saucer hovering above the landscape?
 
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Where’s the story here? The one guy is retiring and one is considering retiring. Do you all expect these people to work there forever? No retirement to go and relax a bit?
 
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Sounds like far too many 'vice-presidents'. OMG! The best way to stay out of touch? Separate yourself from the process. It's impossible to meet with that many VP's, and impossible to stay in touch just from the volume of data that they are likely feeding *someone* at Apple.

So, I imagine there is a layer of Junior Vice-Presidents that each handle a number of those VP's, and then Senior Vice-Presidents that handle a number of Junior VP's, and then what between them, and Cook? It sounds like he doesn't want to hear about the goings on in the bowels of the company.

Disagree all you want, but how would Tim Cook get them all together and have a real meeting about how things are, or aren't, going? How does he pay attention to the myriad details of Apple with 100 different sources. It sounds like he's too far removed from what Apple is doing. Is he driving through the rear window?

I had a client that had a CEO that never showed up at the company. Ever. Managers did the day to day, and some hid things to keep their jobs. They went bankrupt. There was no follow through and continuity in their corporate goals. And the CEO had a mid-six figure salary. Tim Cook makes a hell of a lot of money. And he manages a slew of vice-presidents? Boeing has a huge problem, and I've read that the recently pushed out president installed layers of 'management' that potentially contributed to the widespread issues Boeing has encountered lately. It's not just the 737MAX. The missteps range across everything they make.

Whatever...
 
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I don't know how I feel about publicizing the second hand accounting "potential" of someone leaving a company.

At best and article like this would jeopardize the trust of the individual by their Senior Management and at worst make them utterly ineffective as their staff disregard their direction.

This is literally only newsworthy because it was published. Otherwise the story has no merit and frankly would have been far more compelling to anonymize the subjects of the rumors. Imagine the gossip on campus when everyone starts to guess who is leaving? Lol
 
atomic.flip said:
I don't know how I feel about publicizing the second hand accounting "potential" of someone leaving a company.

At best and article like this would jeopardize the trust of the individual by their Senior Management and at worst make them utterly ineffective as their staff disregard their direction.

This is literally only newsworthy because it was published. Otherwise the story has no merit and frankly would have been far more compelling to anonymize the subjects of the rumors. Imagine the gossip on campus when everyone starts to guess who is leaving? Lol
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It's gossip.
 
Apple has about 100 vice presidents who help CEO Tim Cook and the senior executive team run the company.

Reminds me of the Teldar shareholder meeting scene in Wall Street - starts at 2:03:

 
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Sounds like financial institutions where inflated VP titles are common as dirt.
 
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I never get the appeal of these stories. People leave big companies all the time. And new people get hired. But yet Gurman writes these stories like it’s juicy gossip or super important. If Jeff Williams leaves the company, that’s news. Some mid level manager or VP retiring is not.
 
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