Mahe

"Doug Guthrie recalls the first time he met Mahe. He was one of the people advocating for an official head of China, but he didn’t play a role in the selection process or know who she was. So he was surprised when, on one of his trips to Cupertino, she asked him to come by her office. It was after Chinese New Year, in early 2017, a time when Guthrie had developed real influence with senior executives. He walked to her office in Infinite Loop and exchanged pleasantries. Mahe gazed at him and said, “So I guess I have you to blame?” Guthrie’s eyes widened; the question felt aggressive. “We’ve never met,” he responded. “Have I done something?” And Mahe said, “Well, I’m getting on a plane and going to China, and it’s because Tim [Cook] said, ‘You better listen to Doug Guthrie.’ ” Within a few minutes it became clear Mahe wasn’t just referring to a typical jaunt over to China; she’d been asked to take on a major career challenge, one that would involve moving to Shanghai with her non-Chinese-speaking husband and their children."

"Besides, Mahe wasn’t a threat to anybody. Cupertino concluded it was best just to leave her in a cushy role. When she tried to establish a media presence for herself, she wasn’t allowed to, so she sought out other work to create her image in other ways. She joined the board of Starbucks in 2019 and Lululemon in 2022, and now serves as a governor of the China division of the American Chamber of Commerce. To outsiders, these positions have made her look like a rock star. *Fortune* has repeatedly named Mahe to its “Most Powerful Women” lists. And in the rare instances she’s mentioned in the media, reporters make the natural assumption that Apple’s success in China is somehow reflective of her leadership. The company’s secretive, insular culture has masked the reality that she’s been playing a largely ceremonial role."

"The hard work paid off: In 1992 Mahe received a scholarship to Simon Fraser University, where she completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering. She joined PDA maker Palm in 2002, staying for nearly six years as it struggled to reinvent itself for a smartphone future. Mahe had built a wireless team for Palm almost from the ground up, catching the attention of Cupertino, and a few months after the iPhone was unveiled, Apple recruiters started a year-long campaign to draft her. She rebuffed them, believing that leaving her team would be a betrayal. But the recruiting intensified, culminating in Steve Jobs inviting Mahe over for dinner. He impressed her, although he lied about the dinner. “Just water for the whole two hours,” Mahe once told *Fortune*. “So that was a little bit of bait and switch!” Jobs, listening to her concerns, allowed her to bring over key members of her Palm team. According to Mahe’s account, he clinched the deal with this line: “You can stay with Palm and drive a bus full of people off a cliff, or you can come to Apple and give them a better place to land.”"