Apple becomes the first big tech with an equal board of directors

Apple, the most valuable company in the world over the last decade (although on Friday it gave up the throne to Microsoft), will have a board of directors with four men and four women at next month's shareholders meeting. If, as is foreseeable, the shareholders ratify the proposalthe company founded by Steve Jobs will thus become the only one of the big technology companies (including Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft, among others) in which there will be the same number of people of each sex in the board of directors. administration.

The company led by Tim Cook takes a great leap forward, since until now the board had twice as many men as women. Having turned 75, former United States Vice President Al Gore (Apple board member since 2003) and former Boeing CFO James Bell, who was on the board since 2015, are leaving their positions.

Apple has proposed the appointment of Wanda Austin, 69, former CEO of The Aerospace Corporation, with decades of experience in science and technology and a significant track record in promoting innovation and designing corporate strategies, as highlighted by the company. company. “Wanda has spent decades advancing technology on behalf of humanity, and we are delighted to welcome her to Apple's board of directors,” said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. “She is an extraordinary leader, and her invaluable experience and knowledge will support our mission to leave the world better than we found it,” he added.

With the incorporation of Wanda Austin, Apple's board is made up of eight people, four men and four women. Art Levinson, 73, is the non-executive chairman. He is CEO of healthcare company Calico and previously led Genentech in the same sector. He has been on the board since 2000. Tim Cook, 63, is the CEO and, as such, the company's first executive. He succeeded Steve Jobs in 2011. He was previously the group's chief operating officer, a position he had held since 2005. Also on the board is Alex Gorsky, 63, who was CEO and chairman of Johnson & Johnson until January 2023. He is also a director of JPMorgan and IBM, and has been on the board of Apple since 2001.

The fourth man is Ron Sugar, for whom the company has made an exception even though he has also turned 75, the usual retirement age for directors. Apple says that as chairman of the Audit Committee, Sugar plays an important technical role and that he also brings executive leadership experience as former president and CEO of Northrop Grumman Corporation, a global security company. Additionally, Apple notes, he has financial knowledge, experience in global operations, an understanding of advanced technology, experience in government relations and public policy, and a global business perspective. He is a director of Amgen and Uber and has also been a director of Chevron.

Wanda Austin, the 69-year-old African American woman now appointed as a director, belongs to the boards of Chevron and Amgen. She joins Andrea Jung on the board, 65 years old, who was CEO of Avon and is now a director of Unilever, Wayfair and Rockefeller Capital Management. She has been on Apple's board since 2008. Since 2014, Sue Wagner, 62, co-founder of the asset management giant BlackRock, a firm of which she was vice president from January 2006 until her retirement in July 2012, has been a director since 2014. She was director of Operations and Head of Corporate Strategy at BlackRock, and led the alternative investments and international client businesses. She remains a director of BlackRock and is also a director of the listed Samsara. The previous woman who had joined the council before Austin was Mónica Lozano, 67, with a long career in the media. She was president of the Board of Directors of US Hispanic Media, the parent company of ImpreMedia, and held different positions in said group, including director of The opinion of the Angels. Latina, she is a director of Bank of America and Target and has been on the board of Apple since 2021.

On Microsoft's board there are seven men and five women, just like on Amazon's; In Meta there are five men and four women, and in Alphabet, the Google group, there are eight men and only three women, according to the latest board nominations for each company before the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC, for its acronym in English).

Apple also has parity among the non-advisory senior managers of its leadership. The four most prominent are the financial director, Luca Maestri; head of retail business, Deirdre O'Brien; the legal manager, Kate Adams, and the director of operations, Jeff Williams. Each of them earned close to 27 million dollars (close to 25 million euros at the current exchange rate) in the 2023 financial year, closed on September 30, in line with the remuneration of the previous two years.

Cook raises his salary this year

Above them, Tim Cook himself carried out the announced cut in his remuneration last year. Finally, after exceeding the objectives set, Apple's CEO earned $63.2 million in fiscal year 2023, 36.4% less than the $99.4 million in 2022. Cook has $3.28 million in his portfolio of Apple stock valued at about $610 million, not counting options and deferred-expiry stock awards.

After some protests and pressure from shareholders for his high remuneration, Cook agreed to subject his target or reference remuneration for 2023 to a drastic cut, which went from 84 million dollars in 2022 to 49 million in 2023. Having achieved If you exceed the objectives set and the stock has appreciated strongly, the cut has been a little less noticeable.

Now, Apple's commission in charge of remuneration is backing down a bit and sharply raising the reference remuneration of its chief executive for this year, to $59 million, 20.4% more. The salary remains at three million dollars and the reference cash bonus at another six million (it can reach 12 million), but the share prize goes from 40 to 50 million dollars, an increase of 25%. Added to this are other items (pensions, vacations, security, private trips on the company plane…) which, for example, last year totaled 2.5 million dollars.

The effective remuneration will depend on the objectives that are achieved and the evolution of the price, which will determine the cash bonus and share awards that come into effect.

Artificial intelligence

Among the proposals submitted for consideration by the board are some from shareholders that the board recommends rejecting. One of them requests more transparency with the use of artificial intelligence. Asks Apple to prepare a report on the company's use of Artificial Intelligence in its business operations. It also proposes that you disclose any ethical guidelines the company has adopted in relation to the company's use of AI technology. “This report will be made publicly available to the company's shareholders on the company's website, will be prepared at a reasonable cost, and will omit any information that is proprietary, privileged, or violates contractual obligations,” the proposal says. .

Apple's board requests a no vote: “We are committed to the responsible advancement of our products and services that use AI, we have a robust approach to addressing ethical considerations across our business operations, and we already provide resources and transparency about our approach of artificial intelligence and machine learning,” he says in his justification. “The scope of the requested report is extrem
ely broad and could encompass the disclosure of strategic plans and initiatives detrimental to our competitive position and would be premature in this developing area,” he adds.

Follow all the information Economy and Business in Facebook and xor in our weekly newsletter

_