The senior leadership at Apple aren’t as young as they used to be. And now we know Apple is aware of this fact, and starting to develop some plans for the inevitable.
Retirement. We’re talking about retirement here. According to a report from Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly well underway in developing a succession plan for the majority of its senior leadership roles, including the chief executive role. The goal is to find the “new generation of leaders” for Apple, who will take over the spots held by the likes of Tim Cook and others.
The report outlines several steps along the way. For instance, if Tim Cook were to retire very soon, then the current succession plan has Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams taking his place. Within Apple, according to the report, Williams is seen as the “heir apparent”, and apparently the go-to option for Cook’s replacement. Williams, for his part, has recently started overseeing hardware and software development at Apple. And he oversaw the development of the Apple Watch and health features that have become so important to the company as a whole.
What’s more, Williams is said to be “an operations-focused executive like Cook rather than a product visionary like Jobs or former design chief Jony Ive”, and a pragmatic leader.
So it makes sense that Williams would be considered for such a role change at some point in the future.
Greg Joswiak just took over the marketing chief role from Phil Schiller (who is now an Apple Fellow), but this succession plan include his role, too. Gurman says Kaiann Drance could be tapped to take over Joswiak’s role in the future. Drance was just appointed the vice president of iPhone marketing.
Meanwhile, Craig Federighi is believed to be not going anywhere anytime soon. He is the youngest member of the executive crew after all. Still, Apple’s considered his replacement, too. In this case, two people are reportedly in line to take up Federighi’s duties at some point in the future. Jon Andrews, the vice president of CoreOS, and Sebastien Marineau-Mes, vice president of Intelligent Systems Experience.
Peter Stern, who currently oversees Apple’s original programming efforts, along with iCloud, Apple Books, and Apple News, could be the replacement for Eddy Cue. Cue is the senior VP overseeing several different important services for Apple, including Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple Maps. Interestingly, Stern is said to be leading the charge on the upcoming “Apple One” subscription service we’ve been hearing so much about lately.
The full report is certainly an interesting read, as it breaks down several other roles and their succession plans.
Who would you like to see take Tim Cook’s place when he eventually retires?