John Ternus Expected to Reshape Apple's Executive Team [Gurman]

John Ternus becomes Apple's chief executive on September 1, and over the next few years he will likely need to replace the senior executives running hardware, marketing, retail, and human resources, according to Mark Gurman.



Tim Cook inherited a management team that was fiercely loyal to Steve Jobs and mostly still in the middle of their careers. Cook held on to nearly all of it for 15 years. Ternus inherits one that has stayed into its early to late 60s. Cook is not leaving either, becoming executive chairman of the board while handing daily control of the company to his successor.


The changing of the guard was planned. By 2024, Cook knew that four of Apple's most senior leaders - himself, the chief operating officer, the chief financial officer, and the general counsel - all wanted to retire or at least semi-retire, and that they could not go at once without risking a backlash from shareholders and employees. The exits were staggered instead.

Luca Maestri handed the CFO job to Kevan Parekh at the start of 2025 and stayed on the payroll overseeing real estate and information systems, though he is no longer in day-to-day management and rarely comes into the office more than once a week. Next came Jeff Williams, who left at the end of 2025 after running operations, health, design, and AppleCare. Once his exit was announced, the long-expected retirements of General Counsel Kate Adams and environment chief Lisa Jackson became official. The CFO, COO, and general counsel roles are now filled.

Deirdre O'Brien, the 60-year-old senior vice president of retail and people, has spent nearly four decades at Apple and is believed to be within a few years of the end of her run. On the retail side she has been preparing her deputy Vanessa Trigub to succeed her. Trigub was named vice president of all retail store operations last year. The people side of the role is less settled, with the report pointing to either an outside hire or an internal candidate such as Cynthia Bowman.

The biggest of the departures could be Johny Srouji, named chief hardware officer in April after telling Cook last year that he was considering leaving. Srouji stayed on for a broader remit and to help with the handover, reorganizing the hardware teams in May, but people close to the matter are adamant that the 61-year-old will weigh an exit again, perhaps within a year or two. With the move off Intel processors complete, the chip road map set, and the work to replace Qualcomm modem components nearing its end, little is left in silicon beyond steady chip improvements for him to tackle.


When Srouji goes, Apple would likely need to carve hardware back into separate engineering and technologies divisions, because the company has no obvious successor for the combined role created for him. Gurman expects Tom Marieb to lead the engineering group, with either Sri Santhanam or Zongjian Chen taking technologies, which includes chips.

Greg Joswiak could stay as long as he wants. A 40-year veteran and a close friend of the incoming CEO, the 62-year-old marketing chief is nonetheless expected to head for the exit within a few years. The two candidates to replace him are Lilian Rincon, recently appointed to head artificial intelligence marketing, and Kaiann Drance, the longtime iPhone marketing chief.

Maestri's formal departure is still to come, and the groups he kept after leaving the CFO job would most likely move to Parekh, though some could fit in operations instead. Ternus is also expected to shift the reporting lines of some executives as he takes charge, giving more responsibility to services chief Eddy Cue, Parekh, and COO Sabih Khan.