Avie Tevanian Was Named Chief Software Technology Officer in 2003, Left in 2006

This completely slipped my mind when I wrote about how few C-level executives Apple has had in its modern era (which I loosely define as starting when Steve Jobs took the “interim” CEO title):

July 8, 2003 — Apple today announced that Avadis “Avie” Tevanian Jr., Ph.D., will become the company’s chief software technology officer and Bertrand Serlet will be promoted to senior vice president of Software Engineering. In his new role, Tevanian will focus on setting company-wide software technology directions, and Serlet will now report directly to Apple CEO Steve Jobs and lead the company’s OS Software Engineering group.

Tevanian left the company three years later, in 2006.

So, there is some precedent for an Apple senior executive getting a promotion to a C-level title on their way out the door. One notable difference between the two situations, though: Serlet reported directly to Jobs; Apple’s new vice presidents of UI design and industrial design (Alan Dye and Richard Howarth) report directly to Jony Ive.

★ Thursday, 28 May 2015