Starbucks picks up Apple VP Isabel Ge Mahe to go

What you need to know

  • Isabel Ge Mahe is joining the Starbucks board.
  • She's been at Apple since 2008.
  • Starbucks has also picked up execs from NIKE and Domino's.

Isabel Ge Mahe, Apple's VP and Managing Director of Greater China, is joining the board of Starbucks according to a press release.

Starbucks believes that the addition of Ge Mahe, as well as two other people, will help as it "continues to build an enduring company".

The Apple VP is joined by Richard E. Allison, Jr., Chief Executive Officer of Domino's and Andrew Campion, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of NIKE.

As we pursue our goal of building an enduring company, I couldn't be more excited to have Ritch, Andy and Isabel join our world-class board of directors," said Kevin Johnson, Starbucks president and chief executive officer. "Their expertise across global technology, retail and customer experience at scale will accelerate our drive to innovate in a way that's relevant to our customers and inspiring to our partners

Ge Mahe has been with Apple for more than a decade, having joined in 2008, and has had a hand in almost every product Apple has made since then. Including iPhone. At least, that's what the page on Apple's website says.

Isabel joined Apple in 2008 as vice president of Wireless Technologies, overseeing the development of cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, location and motion technologies for nearly every Apple product. She also played a key role in developing new China-specific features for iPhone and iPad.

That sounds like quite the impact to have.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.