John Ternus, Apple Inc.'s next chief executive officer, is up against a major challenge as he settles into the role: retaining top talent during a time of historic turnover.

After years of relative calm, the company has suffered a wave of recent departures - both among C-suite executives and rank-and-file engineers. It's up to Ternus, who succeeds Tim Cook in September, to stabilise the workforce.

Apple got a recent taste of just how easy it is to lose some of its most prized talent. At the end of last year, celebrated chip executive Johny Srouji told Cook that he was seriously considering leaving the Cupertino, California-based company.

He had expressed to some colleagues that he was burned out from leading the iPhone maker's vast silicon operation, citing his hands-on approach and relentless drive to deliver industry-leading advances year after year.He told Cook he was weighing whether to continue his career elsewhere.

Cook needed to get creative. Losing Srouji, who turned Apple's in-house Mac and iPhone chips into the envy of the industry, would have been a blow to his legacy.

With Apple lagging in artificial intelligence and device designs becoming more commoditised, a vital selling point remains the silicon developed by Srouji's team.

Knowing that he was weighing his own future at the company and that Ternus would be his successor, Cook devised a solution: a massive new compensation package and a broader role for Srouji as Apple's first chief hardware officer.

Source:Ndtv