Apple Inc.’s top recruiting executive is leaving to become the chief people officer at investment firm Citadel, according to people with knowledge of the matter, marking another major departure for the iPhone maker’s tumultuous human resources team.
Sjoerd Gehring, a vice president who oversaw Apple talent management, immigration, recruiting and administration of its global HR team, is joining the Miami-based hedge fund next month, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the news hasn’t been shared publicly. Spokespeople for Citadel and Apple declined to comment.
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Earlier this week, Apple told employees that Gehring’s boss — Chief People Officer Carol Surface — is departing after just about 18 months in the job. Surface had announced Gehring’s exit internally last Thursday. At Citadel, Gehring will replace Matt Jahansouz, who left the firm last month.
Gehring told colleagues he was drawn to the Citadel job because he will be closer to family on the East Coast and because of a long-held desire to be a chief people officer. But people with knowledge of the matter also say that Surface’s management style — and a desire to no longer work for her — contributed to Gehring wanting to leave Apple.
Surface is being replaced by Deirdre O’Brien, the company’s retail chief. O’Brien had overseen the HR duties until Surface was hired early last year and will retake that role. She is one of Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook’s most trusted lieutenants, and employees believe that she will help bring stability back to the group, the people said.
HR Upheaval
Over the past several months, Apple has seen a rash of departures from its human resources organization, including multiple employees exiting its diversity and inclusion, executive recruiting and college recruiting groups. Employees say that, under Surface’s leadership, the larger team has been mired in dysfunction and that her management style sometimes came across to staffers as off-putting.
Apple’s head of diversity and inclusion, Barbara Whye, is leaving the iPhone maker and will be replaced by former Bank of America Corp. executive Cynthia Bowman. Whye and Surface had an adversarial relationship, some of the people said. Apple declined to comment on behalf of the two executives. Surface didn’t respond to a separate request for comment.
In March, head of compensation Heidi Holter, who also reported to Surface, departed for ServiceNow Inc. And Eddie McLeod, a top deputy to Gehring, left for a senior HR role at Ford Motor Co. last year.
The division had a revolving door even prior to Surface joining. In 2022, HR Vice President Jennifer Waldo departed to become head of people at Ford. Before that, Apple University boss Joel Podolny, who oversaw an internal school for employees, left for a startup. In 2017, Denise Young Smith, Apple’s first head of diversity, exited after one year in the role. Her replacement, Christie Smith, left after only three years at the company.
The same year as Young Smith’s exit, the former head of talent for Apple’s retail department, Stephanie Fehr, left to become chief people officer at UnitedHealthcare.
Citadel Move
Citadel Chief Operating Officer Gerald Beeson informed employees about Gehring joining the company, saying that “Sjoerd will spearhead our efforts to attract top candidates from around the world and help them build extraordinary careers at Citadel matching their merit and ambition.”
Beeson added that the company is “committed to hiring and developing exceptional talent,” according to the letter, which was seen by Bloomberg.
For Citadel, the Gehring hire is a coup. He was highly respected at Apple in his roughly six years at the company. Employees within Apple’s HR division say they are disappointed he won’t be Apple’s next chief people officer and that he is highly qualified for the role.
Prior to his work at the iPhone maker, he “led recruiting and employee experience for Johnson & Johnson and, earlier in his career, served for a decade at Accenture, where he led its Talent Innovation Lab,” Beeson said in the Citadel memo.
Citadel is known as the most profitable hedge fund and is run by billionaire Ken Griffin. While the firm is now based in Florida, Gehring will work out of the company’s New York offices.
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