Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer will start serving on Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS)’s board of directors effectively immediately. The addition of Oppenheimer means that the firm’s board of directors now has 13 members, with 10 of them being independent directors.
Oppenheimer joins all Goldman committees
The Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) executive will also be serving on all of Goldman’s Audit, Risk, Compensation and Corporate Governance, Nominating, and Public Responsibilities committees, according to the press release via Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS)’s website.
“Peter’s 25 years of broad experience across important industries will add a valuable perspective to our Board of Directors,” said Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS), in a statement. “We appreciate his willingness to serve as a director and look forward to benefitting from his judgment and counsel.”
Oppenheimer already serves on the boards of the Sacred Heart Schools in California and the California Polytechnic University Foundations.
Other Apple execs serve elsewhere
9to5 Mac notes that a number of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s other top executives also service on the boards of major companies. For example, CEO Tim Cook is a member of Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE)’s board. Apple has been rumored to be working on a smart watch, and Cook has praised Nike’s Fuelband in the past.
Eddy Cue, who is Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s senior vice-president of Internet Software and Services, currently sits on Ferrari’s board as well. The fact that Apple executives have begun to serve on the boards of other major companies is particularly interesting because co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs apparently opposed the idea of Apple executives serving on the boards of other companies—even those which don’t compete with Apple. Jobs basically opposed the idea that executives would put their time into “helping someone else’s company” instead of putting additional time helping Apple move forward.
Of course Jobs is gone now, and executives are free to do as they please.
