“The consensus view this morning about Apple’s ‘promotion’ of Jony Ive to Chief Design Officer is that this is telegraphing a departure by the executive at some point in the future (whether 1 or 5 years from now),” Eric Jackson writes for Forbes.
“Many are concluding from all this that Jony Ive is tired of Apple, wants to go back to England to spend more time with the family and this announcement ‘telegraphs’ his eventual departure from the company,” Jackson writes. “I interpret the move in a completely different and more cynical way. I believe yesterday’s announcement was done entirely to continue to shield Jony Ive’s compensation from disclosure to the SEC and therefore from the public.”
“Apple has hid Ive’s comp from public view since 2009. One could argue they shouldn’t have. Before yesterday’s news, Ive was last promoted into an SVP of Design position two years ago – a relatively short time before a new job change might be expected,” Jackson writes. “That promotion 2 years ago, and the recognition of Ive’s prominent position on Apple’s website among the Management Team, more prominently put Apple in an untenable position to argue with the SEC that Ive’s compensation shouldn’t be disclosed. Yesterday’s announcement resolves that and puts them in a much stronger position to argue they need to continue to guard his compensation.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Even if Jony Ive is the highest paid Apple employee (highly likely), why shield his compensation? It’s not like we don’t expect him to be very highly paid. After all, we know Angela Ahrendts got some $83 million to leave the Burberry CEO-ship for Apple. Who, exactly, would be shocked to hear that Jony’s racking up hundreds of millions?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Arline M.” for the heads up.]