This Week's Top Five Leadership Stories

Apple’s Plans for AI and Market Growth Under John Ternus

Following the announcement of John Ternus as Apple’s newest CEO, succeeding Tim Cook, the company is preparing for a company-wide shift to implement AI across all its product offerings, despite concerns around tariffs and supply chain uncertainty.

On 20 April, Apple announced John Ternus as its latest CEO, who will officially take up the leadership reins on 1 September this year. 

Unlike Tim, who turned Apple into a US$4tn tech service and supply chain powerhouse, John has served as a hardware engineer since 2001, contributing to major Apple products like AirPods, the Apple Watch and the Vision Pro.

Bottega Veneta Announces New Marketing Leadership

Bottega Veneta has announced it is appointing Jodie Chan as its new Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Americas, succeeding Jenny Kim. 

Effective April 29, Jodie will oversee and develop the company’s communications and marketing strategy for the Americas region. 

The move follows the departure of Bartolomeo Rongone, formerly CEO of Bottega Veneta, at the end of March, and the announcement of parent company Kering’s turnaround strategy to improve profitability in April.

Ramon Laguarta: PepsiCo Q1 2026 Revenue Exceeds Expectations

On 23 April, PepsiCo announced that its earnings and revenue for Q1 2026 exceeded analyst expectations, following its struggling North American food business returning to volume growth for the first time two years after the company cut prices on major snack brands.

Against Wall Street’s expected predictions, the company reported US$1.61 compared to an expected US$1.55 and a revenue of US$19.44bn against an expected US$18.94bn.

In a press release on PepsiCo’s first quarter earnings for 2026, Chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta says: “We are pleased with our first-quarter results, which featured an acceleration in both net revenue and organic revenue growth – with a notable improvement in convenient foods organic volume.  

“An extensive commercial agenda, which includes the restaging of large global brands, innovation activity and certain affordability initiatives, is being executed well and business performance improved.”

PepsiCo enacted price increases to combat inflation in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic. The company hiked prices by double-digit percentages for eight consecutive quarters in 2022 and 2023 before settling into more moderate price increases.

This affected sales, with consumers opting for cheaper snack options owned by PepsiCo, such as Frito-Lays. Company-wide changes like this resulted in PepsiCo’s market value falling by US$40bn in 2023.

Inside Rivian’s US$403m CEO Pay Package

According to a Rivian company filing on 27 April, CEO RJ Scaringe earned U$403m in total compensation in the past year, establishing him as one of the highest paid auto executives in the US.

RJ received more than US$373m in stock options and US$26.6m in stock awards as part of a board-agreed deal in 2025, in addition to his US$1.1m salary and US$1m bonus, according to the filing.

It also states his salary is set to double to US$2m and his maximum bonus will rise to US$1.7m in 2026.

Directors at Rivian justified the package by saying it was “entirely at-risk” and that the shares would only be unlocked following the “achievement of significant stock price and financial improvements”.

RJ’s pay is considerably higher than the CEOs of competitor auto companies. In comparison Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley earned US$27.5m in 2025 and General Motors CEO Mary Barra received US$29.9m.

On average, RJ’s pay is 13 times larger than Mary Barra’s, the next best paid US auto CEO.

Jensen Huang is ‘Perfectly Fine’ with a Tax on Wealth

A one-time 5% wealth tax led by the SEIU United Healthcare Workers West union is being proposed by California lawmakers to impose larger taxes on the state’s ultra-wealthy.

Several tech leaders in California are planning to relocate operations in Florida, such as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google Co-Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in order to take advantage of the southern state’s lower tax rate.

However, not all CEOs have had the same knee-jerk response to the proposed bill.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang says he has no intention of moving the company from California.

“I say to everybody, ‘Move to California, don’t leave.’ It’s the highest taxes in the world, but it’s okay,” Huang said, speaking to US Congressman Ro Khanna at the Stanford Graduate School of Business on 16 April.

Jensen also told Bloomberg on 6 January that NVIDIA operates in California’s Silicon Valley because “that’s where the talent pool is”. Additionally, in response to questions about the wealth tax, he said he wasn’t concerned about it, instead adding that he was solely focused on building “the future of AI.”