'The most important Apple executive you've never heard of' is now also Apple's second-best paid

Apple

Apple's Johny Srouji is now the company's second-best paid executive.

• Apple Senior VP of Hardware Technologies Johny Srouji is now the company's second-best-paid exec, behind only Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts.
• Srouji made $24,162,392 in total compensation at Apple in 2017.
• Srouji oversees Apple's fast-growing processor-making operations, spearheading the design of custom iPhone processors.
• This was Srouji's debut on the list of top-paid Apple executives.

In 2016, Bloomberg called Johny Srouji "the most important Apple executive you've never heard of." It's a well-earned title: Apple is making more custom processors in-house, and Srouji is the brains behind that operation.

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Now, a new shareholder proxy statement from Apple reveals that Srouji is officially the company's second-best paid executive, behind only Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts.

According to that statement, Srouji made $24,162,392 in total compensation in 2017. By contrast, first-place Ahrendts made a hair more at $24,216,072. Meanwhile, CEO Tim Cook actually draws the lowest compensation of Apple's executive team, at $12,825,066.

Srouji joined Apple in 2008, and was promoted to senior VP of hardware technologies in 2015.

And we know that this is a raise for Srouji, because it's his first time being listed as a named executive in a shareholder proxy filing. According to the SEC, publicly-traded companies like Apple have to publicly disclose the compensation for their CEO, CFO, and then at least the next three highest-paid company executives. Last year, Srouji didn't make that cut. This year, he did. And so, we can tell that he got a raise.

We also know that Apple really wants to keep Srouji around. When he first took the senior VP role at Apple in 2015, the company gave him almost $10 million in a stock bonus, to vest over four years.

It's no wonder why, though. Srouji oversaw the release of the A4 processor for the iPhone, the first Apple had ever created in-house. More recently, he spearheaded the A11 Bionic chip that powers the iPhone 8 and X models. And reports have swirled that Apple might make its own processors for Mac laptops, too.

That puts Srouji right in the center of two of Apple's core businesses. And so, they're investing in keeping him around.