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Apple urged to racially diversify its board of executives

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After an investor noted that Apple’s top tier employees are “a little bit too vanilla,” the company may be forced to expand its pro-diversity hiring policy to the upper ranks of execs.

As reported by Bloomberg, Apple shareholder Antonio Avian Maldonado II submitted a formal proposal for an “accelerated recruitment” of non-whites amongst company executives. Maldonado said he decided to act after his teenage son asked him why “nearly everyone was white” on the Apple board. You only need look at Apple’s executive profiles to see what he’s talking about.

For its part, Apple objects to “micromanaging” the recruitment process, although in general the company is one of the better hirers in Silicon Valley. Apple is impressively transparent with its race and gender hiring statistics, publishing everything on its website, but that doesn’t disguise the extremely un-diverse range of employees at the top level of the company.

The proposal for more “people of color” to be hired into leadership roles will be put to a vote in 2016 at the annual shareholder meeting, which could force Apple into action if it passes.