Western Digital Corp. Chief Executive Matt Massengill is stepping aside to make way for his longtime right-hand man.
Arif Shakeel, Western Digital’s chief operating officer and No. 2 to Massengill, is set to become chief executive of the Lake Forest disk drive maker on Oct. 1.
Shakeel’s set to receive a salary of $800,000 a year, up from his current $700,000, and 1.25 million restricted shares of the company’s stock. He also will be elegible for a bonus worth 100% of his salary.
Massengill, who’s overseen expansion at Western Digital in the past few years, is set to remain as executive chairman.
In the past, 44-year-old Massengill has been quick to credit Shakeel for gains at Western Digital.
Since early 2004, Western Digital has re-entered the market for drives for portable computers and expanded production in Asia.
The company’s shares are up more than 30% this year amid strong sales and earnings, even as key rivals have stumbled.
Western Digital’s shares were flat in afterhours trading on the news Thursday.
Shakeel, 50, has been with Western Digital since the mid-1980s and was elected a director last year. He becomes the second executive of Pakistani descent to lead a major Orange County company after Safi Qureshy, chief executive of now-defunct AST Research, in the 1990s.
