Two highly-placed Apple employees announced their retirement dates today. Apple hardware Senior Vice President Bob Mansfield and Apple Principal Accounting Officer Betsy Rafael are both retiring later this year. Mansfield supervised the engineering of every major Apple product released in the 21st century. Rafael has been with Apple and has served as the principal accounting officer since 2008, and is responsible for managing the company's finances.
Mansfield joined Apple in 1999, and was directly responsible for the PowerPC to Intel migration, the entire suite of iOS devices, and the MacBook Air. He will leave after handing the reins to Dan Riccio, Apple's vice president of iPad Hardware Engineering.
The departure of the hardware chief comes as no surprise -- Mansfield has been building a house in Bonny Doon, CA and has run into trouble with his neighbors complaining about the
scale of his as-yet unbuilt house.
Apple CEO Tim Cook praised Mansfield in a statement about his retirement: "Bob has been an instrumental part of our executive team, leading the hardware engineering organization and overseeing the team that has delivered dozens of breakthrough products over the years."
Rafael previously served as principal accounting officer at Cisco from July 2003 until she was promoted to vice president of corporate finance and planning in September 2006. She left the company in August 2007 to join Apple. Previous positions were held at Aspect Communications, Palmsource, Inc., Escalate Corporation, and SGI. No replacement has been named.
All of Apple's financial matters have fallen under Rafael's purview. She has overseen a period of enormous growth in Apple's income, along with dealing with controversies about its cash hoard and repatriation of foreign earnings.
Top