Jony Ive got a promotion. That one of the most influential men at one of the most influential technology companies in the world could be promoted is an almost humorous concept, but in a recent Telegraph article, Ive confirmed the title change. After two years as Apple’s senior vice president of design, his business cards will now read "chief design officer."
It has a nice ring to it, "chief design officer." And the promotion is overdue, according to Piper Jaffray's Apple analyst extraordinaire Gene Munster. Ive has long steered nearly every aspect of Apple’s design vision. During his tenure, he's overseen everything from the look and feel of Apple products to the interactions you experience on them. He even reportedly designed the tables at the Apple campus café. "His role in the company is much bigger than a VP level," Munster says, "so it makes sense that he gets a bigger title."
Ive is monolithic within the design world. He's also the guy to whom Apple's future is hitched. But what if he should leave? Who would oversee the company's design direction, which has been so critical to the tech giant's success? The same questions circled around Steve Jobs in 2011, when he took his third medical leave and Tim Cook assumed day-to-day duties in Cupertino. The succession question had been answered. And here, too, this promotion is about more than the man getting the new title. This isn't about Ive's future. It's about Apple's.
In a telling passage, Ive explains to Telegraph author and actor Stephen Fry that he will install two stalwart lieutenants, who have presumably shadowed Ive as Cook did with Jobs, in leading roles. Richard Howarth, a longtime Ive underling, will assume control of industrial design. Alan Dye, who began his Apple career in the marketing division, will oversee user interface:
Because really, who has time for approving PTO when there’s a revolutionary new gadget to be brainstormed? Ive goes on to say he’ll be traveling more often, a result of playing a larger role in the design of Apple retail stores (and their swanky new VIP sections), and the gig comes with the inherent expectation that Ive will officially become Apple's Big Ideas guy.
But it could be less about lauding Ive than placing two other designers, Howarth and Dye, in the path of successorship. Should Apple's design guru ever leave the company, shareholders can take comfort in the fact that two Ive-sanctioned surrogates ready to step in.
Munster, for one, doesn't think Ive is going anywhere anytime soon. But, he says, the company is protecting itself against the possibility of a power change-up: "What they're doing is laying the groundwork for a transition."
