Apple's WWDC 2016 onstage lineup was more diverse than it has ever been

Like virtually all of Silicon Valley, Apple is both extremely white and extremely male in its upper ranks. And for many years, it has been mostly white men onstage at Apple keynote events.

Last year, that began to change. And at today’s Worldwide Developers Conference, it changed some more.

Of the 10 people onstage at WWDC today, there were six men and four women, including one African-American woman. According to 2015 figures on Apple’s website, the company has a 70/30 gender split, and is 54 percent white, 18 percent Asian, 11 percent Hispanic and 8 percent black. At last year’s WWDC, there were two women onstage for the event.

The women onstage were Apple Music’s Bozoma Saint John, Apple Watch software exec Stacey Lysik, software engineering VP Cheryl Thomas and iOS software exec Bethany Bongiorno. Imran Chaudhri, on the Apple design team, was the one nonwhite guy. (Apple iTunes executive Eddy Cue — a regular presenter at Apple events, including today's — is Cuban American.)

Saint John, who was both very funny and charismatic, was a particularly big hit among people watching the event. For example, BuzzFeed says that "Bozoma St. John Is The Coolest Person To Go Onstage At An Apple Event Ever." And The Verge (our Vox Media sister site) called her a "hero."

Update: This post has been updated to note that Apple executive Eddy Cue is Cuban American.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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