After making headlines with the recent addition of Angela Ahrendts as the Senior VP in charge of retail and online sales and as Apple’s only female top-level executive, the company has elected Susan L. Wagner to its board of directors.
Wagner, who co-founded BlackRock in 1988 and helped it become a global investment powerhouse that now manages over $4.3 trillion in assets, will be replacing Bill Campbell who is retiring after 17 years of service with Apple.
“Sue is a pioneer in the financial industry and we are excited to welcome her to Apple’s board of directors,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. “We believe her strong experience, especially in M&A and building a global business across both developed and emerging markets, will be extremely valuable as Apple continues to grow around the world.”
After graduating with honors from Wellesley College with a BA in English and Economics, she went on to earn her MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago. From there, Wagner held a variety of executive leadership positions serving on the boards of BlackRock and DSP BlackRock (India), Swiss Re, Wellesley College, and Hackley School.
In addition to her outstanding breadth of talent, education and experience, Wagner is also recognized as one of Fortune Magazine’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business. Not only was she honored by the National Council for Research on Women but also supports the Women’s Initiative Network at BlackRock which was developed to help foster the full potential of women within the investment firm.
“I have always admired Apple for its innovative products and dynamic leadership team, and I’m honored to be joining their board,” said Wagner. “I have tremendous respect for Tim, Art and the other board members, and I look forward to working with them.”
Wagner is an inspiration to women all around the world and seems to be a perfect fit to help Apple reach new heights. And while only time will tell if whether she’ll be instrumental in helping Apple reach its full potential, we definitely wish Wagner the best and are excited to see the valuable contributions that she’ll bring to Apple in the near future.
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The ever-evolving technology industry has been traditionally populated by males. And while women comprise 51 percent of the workforce, they only make up 26 percent of tech professionals. This lack of diversity limits the potential for innovation in this exciting and important field. OWC’s Women in Tech articles featured on the OWC Blog aim to examine what can be done to attract more women to the industry by highlighting prominent tech professionals, current events, and other relevant stories from within the tech sector. To gain new insight, it is imperative that we tap into the female working population. This progress can be made not only spreading the word and promoting the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (or STEM) fields from an early age to encourage interest and pursuit, but also by demonstrating that tech companies require alternative skill sets such as marketing, design and writing as well. We hope that you will share this series and help us advocate the complete utilization of this important resource.
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