14 DAY TRIAL // Apple today announced that Peter Oppenheimer would be leaving Apple in September. Taking his place as Chief Financial Officer will be Luca Maestri, who is currently Apple’s vice president of Finance and corporate controller. In September, Maestri will be reporting to Tim Cook.
We’ve already covered the retirement announcement, as well as the reasons why Oppenheimer has decided to part ways with Apple. What’s left is to take a closer look at the guy filling his seat come September, Luca Maestri.
According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, “Luca has over 25 years of global experience in senior financial management, including roles as a public company CFO, and I am confident he will be a great CFO at Apple.”
“When we were recruiting for a corporate controller, we met Luca and knew he would become Peter’s successor. His contributions to Apple have already been significant in his time with us and he has quickly gained respect from his colleagues throughout the company.”
Oppenheimer will reportedly transition his CFO role to Maestri starting in June, though Maestri was already well on his way to the CFO position long before Apple announced Oppenheimer’s resignation, as you can imagine.
According to Apple, Maestri has some deep finance knowledge. He has spent 25 years “building and leading finance teams in global companies with significant operating scale and complexity,” according to the Mac maker’s announcement.
Maestri has been CFO at Nokia Siemens Networks and Xerox. He joined Apple in 2013 and has reportedly done a great job impressing both the CEO and the CFO who is retiring this year. He also worked with General Motors where he had operational assignments.
He is said to have an exceptionally broad international background, having taken his chores across almost two dozen countries, from Italy, Poland, and Ireland, to Switzerland, Singapore, Thailand, Brazil, and Germany.
Maestri is a Luiss University graduate who received his bachelor’s degree in Economics. He also holds a master’s degree in Science of Management from Boston University.
To some, Apple’s announcement may come as a shock. However, the move had been predicted by at least one Apple shareholder, and Softpedia let the word out as early as last week.
Various clues were already pointing to Oppenheimer’s potential resignation, and one of these clues was actually Maestri’s increasingly important role in handling the company’s finances.
Although Maestri still has his way cut out for him, it’s pretty obvious he fits the bill, having convinced Apple in less than a year that he’s the man for the job.