Apple this afternoon updated its Apple Leadership page to add Adrian Perica, who has been named the company's vice president of Corporate Development.
In his role as VP of Corporate Development, Perica will be responsible for Apple's mergers, acquisitions, and strategic investing efforts.
Perica, who has been with Apple since 2009, will be reporting directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Prior to joining Apple, Perica worked at Goldman Sachs and Deloitte Consulting.
Prior to being named Apple's VP of Corporate Development, Perica was the head of mergers and acquisitions, responsible for the team that handles Apple's acquisitions.
Top Rated Comments
Andy Samberg for the eventual Adrian Perica biopic!
Obviously a slacker.
Generally speaking the CEO reports to the board of directors. Any transaction that is of “material importance” to the company will almost always require prior consent from the board of directors. This would absolutely include mergers and acquisitions.
Keeping things streamlined in an organization is important. And while the CEO reports to and is directly managed by the Board of Directors the CEO is not the only one who may be managed in such a way. Due to basic business logistics the board is generally only organized to oversee large transactions, especially those involving equity transactions (shares and so on).
It’s entirely possible and quite likely that Mr. Perica would be managed by Tim Cook but also report directly to the Board of Directors on matters pertinent to such transactions that are of material importance to the corporation. i.e. mergers and acquisitions
Cook no doubt may offer counsel and his opinion should hold considerable weight. Similarly he can direct Adrian to focus on priorities of strategic importance (so long as those priorities do not conflict with prior direction set by the Board).
Blah blah blah... you’re a public company, the Board has very broad authority over your existence. If they don’t like the way things are run, they replace the CEO and so on.
Other officers of a company that may (and often do) report to the board are the CFO, the CIO/CTO and at times the COO.
Remember Tim Cook was COO (which is basically like a 2nd in command often taking on responsibilities of the CEO they either have no time, talent or interest in managing.) During Steve Jobs tenure at Apple and when his health was at it’s worst more and more day to day business was delegated to the COO.