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Denise Young Smith (born June 30, 1955) is a Black American business executive, professional soprano singer, and educator. Young is considered one of the most powerful and influential Black women in Silicon Valley.

Young spent 21 years working at Apple Inc.. Her roles included leading human resources and culture strategy for Apple’s retail stores, Vice President of Worldwide Human Resources, and Apple’s first Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion. In the latter two roles, Young reported directly to Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer, making her the first Black woman ever to join Apple’s executive team.

Young’s professional singing career includes her album Soprano, released in 2018, and performances in recital halls such as and Carnegie Hall, and collaborations with prominent artists such as Grammy Award-winning artists Larnelle Harris and former US Secretary of State and concert pianist Condoleezza Rice.

Young’s work directly reflects her experience as a Black American woman. Her father, Leon Young, was the first Black mayor of Colorado Springs, CO. Equal opportunity, affordable housing, and anti-discrimination were primary focal points for Young’s father, a legacy she carried in pioneering Diversity and Inclusion at Apple. This work has had global influence, in and outside of Silicon Valley companies.

Early Life and Family
Young is the only daughter of Leon and Margaret Young, born in Denver, Colorado, United States. She was raised largely in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where her father became the first and only Black mayor of Colorado Springs, CO. She graduated from Palmer High School.

Young’s father, a Navy war veteran and small business owner from West Monroe, Louisiana, United States, was the owner of homestead land, which Young inherited after his passing. Her family’s roots are traceable to Black Americans who were emancipated from slavery and then participated in America’s Great Migration.

Margaret Young was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States. She was a homemaker and avid lover of the arts. Young’s family returned to New York each summer where they would attend Broadway shows, ballets, and museums. Young cites these early childhood experiences of the arts as the launchpad of her lifelong journey in music. Young has a son named Ian Young, who is a California-based artist, designer, and barber. He is also owner of Quiet Giant Designs, a brand design studio.

Education
Young graduated from Grambling State University (GSU), a historically Black college, with a degree in Communications/Journalism. She also holds three honorary doctorate degrees from GSU, University of Delaware, and Cooper Union.

While at Grambling State University, Young was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha and Orchesis Dance Company.

Young also attended University of Colorado Denver where she focused on organizational development and [management].

Pre-Apple Era
Young’s career began as a journalist for the Gazette Telegraph of Colorado Springs, Colorado. She covered arts and entertainment, with actor and artist [Billy Dee Williams] being one of her first interviews.

Young eventually transitioned into the nonprofit industry. Working for Pikes Peak United Way Agency, a branch of United Way, she helped nonprofit organizations like the Southern Colorado AIDS Project and the Colorado Springs Urban League to navigate their early growth stages.

Young also offered talent, human resources, and management consulting expertise to early-stage businesses, including Kleiner Perkins portfolio companies.

Apple Era
In 1991, Apple expanded its manufacturing capacity by purchasing a building in Fountain, Colorado, approximately 12 miles south of Colorado Springs. Four years later, in 1995, Young attended a networking event held for the local Black community where she met recruiters from Apple.

Shortly after, Young took a role in college relations and recruiting at the Fountain facility and worked there for 2-3 years until Apple moved her to Cupertino, California, United States, where Apple is headquartered, to continue her work in human resources.

In 1997, Young left Apple for a time to explore the dot com industry. She was first employed by Internet Travel Network (ITN), the Internet’s first web-based travel logistics consolidator and booking tool. ITN was acquired by Sabre Corporation in August of 2000.

Young then began work at Resonate, a load balancing software company that helps resolve the tension between high traffic demands and slow performing applications and systems.

Shortly after, in 2000, Young returned to Apple to begin her work as Vice President of Retail Human Resources. Denise spent 14 years launching and developing Apple’s famous retail store experience and culture. Among her first HR initiatives at Apple was an internal website called “In Your Voice,” a place for employees to share thoughts on Apple’s inclusion strategy.

Additionally, Young made “major enhancements to Apple inc.’s employee benefits,” such as “increased time off for parental leave, reimbursements for educational classes, a Student Loan Refinancing Program for U.S. employees and a donation matching program,” and extending stock grants to all employees.

Young also orchestrated the launch of Apple’s scholarship program for students of Historically black colleges and universities, an initiative Apple pledged over $40M to. A partnership between Apple and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, Apple committed to giving 30 students up to $25,000 to pay for their senior year and a summer internship at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters, intended to expose “gifted students from HBCUs to a career in technology,” and “...to create opportunities for minority candidates to get their first job at Apple,” Young said.

In May of 2017, Young accepted a high visibility promotion to Apple’s first-ever Vice President of diversity and inclusion. In November of 2017, Apple announced Young’s planned departure at the end of the year. She and Tim Cook had been talking about the next phase of her life and career for approximately a year, and Young played an active role in finding her successor, Christie Smith.

Other
Young has served on the Board of SF Jazz Center since 2016 and has also been an advisor for Howard Schultz’s family foundation since 2017.

Additionally, in January of 2018, Young was appointed executive-in-residence at Cornell Tech, a technology, business, and law design campus of Cornell University.

Denise Young (Soprano)
Young formalized her passion for arts and singing in 2012 with the creation of Blue Organza Productions, an LLC under which she has produced her debut record and staged two concerts.

As a singer, she is a lirico-spinto soprano, and sings jazz, and gospel styles in addition to opera. Her record, titled Soprano, was released under her stage name, Denise Young, Soprano. The album features performances by Def Jam Poetry and Grammy nominated artist Sekou Andrews, renowned jazz duo (and album producers) Tuck Andress and Patti Cathcart Andress Tuck and Patti, John James (guitarist), percussionist Juan Escovedo, and Grammy Award-winning and Oscar-nominated Terence Blanchard.

Young has appeared with Grammy Award-winning artist Larnelle Harris, Phillip Bailey of Earth, Wind and Fire, fronted the Colorado Symphony, and performed classical duets with fellow dual-music-life artist Condoleezza Rice.

Young has also performed across Italy with the Alexander & Buono Festival of music.

Awards and Honors

 * 2017: Black Enterprise, Most Powerful Black Women in Corporate America
 * 2014: Ebony Magazine, EBONY POWER 100, World’s Most Inspiring African Americans
 * 2014: Business Insider, The Coolest People In Tech Right Now

One Young World Summit, 2017
Young participated as a panelist, alongside DeRay McKesson and Michael Hastings, at the 2017 One Young World Summit in Bogotá, Colombia. The panel discussion topic was fighting racial injustice, moderated by Aamna Mohdin of Quartz.

Aamna Mohdin is on record asking Young, “I wanted to touch on something that you said, Denise, that it’s not only just about numbers in Silicon Valley, but you’ve taken on a new role in Apple for inclusion and diversity, and a lot of that is going to be about the numbers. And I just kind of wanted to know whether black women is a priority for you in this new role?”

Young is on record replying, “I’ll say this. So first of all, it’s a new role, but it’s not. I’ve been black and a woman for a long time…I have been doing this work, I have been playing this role for a very long time. I have been a first, I’ve been an only, when I was at the same conference that I just referenced, there were numbers and numbers of black women together — successful, professional, astonishing black women, and we were sharing stories and every single one of us could share the same stories about being in a room, in a meeting and someone would assume you were the assistant, the secretary, that you were not the manager, you were not the boss and that your staff person that was three levels below you was your boss. We all shared those stories.

...you also asked me about my work at Apple, or in particular, who do I focus on? I focus on everyone. Diversity is the human experience. I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the people of color or the women or the LGBT or whatever because that means they’re carrying that around…because that means that we are carrying that around on our foreheads.

And I’ve often told people a story– there can be 12 white blue-eyed blonde men in a room and they are going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation. The issue is representation and mix and bringing all the voices into the room that can contribute to the outcome of any situation. So I focus on everyone, but I also focus on allies and alliances because to DeRay’s point, there’s an incredible amount of power in those who have platforms or those who have the benefit of greater representation to tell the stories of those who do not. So whenever we can accomplish that, then that is a win for everyone. And I think that is something that people, that we all tend to… particularly those who protest things that we are fearful about, we can all win in this story, and so that’s what I try to focus on at Apple.”

Responses
The audience responded with applause during portions of Young’s answer to Mohdin’s question.

From some, Young faced criticism for her statement that, “there can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blonde men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation.” TechCrunch writer Matthew Panzariono stated, “On the face of it the meaning is that there really is no need to look beyond any sort of seeming homogeneity within Silicon Valley’s tech workforce (which is mostly white and overwhelmingly male).”

Others took away Young’s point about the importance of removing the burden of the “diversity” tag from people of color, women, and LGBT individuals—a statement which was met with applause from the summit audience—, and the importance of diverse representation and building alliances and allies.

Young issued an apology memo to Apple team members in response to the criticism.

While some sources questioned whether Young’s departure was related to the controversy, TechCrunch writer Megan Rose Dickey states, “Young Smith had been talking with Apple CEO Tim Cook about the next phase of her career and life since about a year ago, according to a source. Over the last few months, Apple has been searching for a successor to replace Young Smith. It’s not quite clear, however, when exactly Young Smith decided she would leave Apple. But based on that timeline, it seems as though Young Smith made up her mind before those comments in Bogotá, Colombia...”