Apple Names Steve Smith M&A Chief, Promotes App Store Leader [Report]

Apple is naming Steve Smith its new head of mergers and acquisitions and promoting Carson Oliver to App Store vice president, according to Bloomberg. The changes have not been publicly announced, and Apple declined to comment.

Smith, a longtime deputy to Adrian Perica, will replace the executive who has led Apple's M&A and corporate development work for more than a decade. He will report to Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh, returning the team to finance for the first time since 2019, when Perica began reporting directly to then-CEO Tim Cook.

The job covers more than acquisitions. Corporate development also helps negotiate major partnerships, and Perica and services chief Eddy Cue have worked together on deals including the 2024 agreement to integrate ChatGPT into Apple products and Google's longstanding arrangement to be the default search engine on Apple devices.

Perica is staying at the company to focus on services. He has overseen iCloud, Fitness+, and Apple News since 2023 and will continue in that role, reporting to Cue.

That gives Perica a more prominent position within the services division as Cue considers potential successors. Many employees familiar with the situation see Perica and Apple Music executive Oliver Schusser as the leading candidates, the report says. Another possibility under discussion is splitting Cue's responsibilities between them.

On the App Store side, Oliver has already been running the business day to day since Phil Schiller stepped back from those responsibilities. His promotion to vice president leaves the reporting line unchanged: he will continue answering to Cue.

Cue's responsibilities have expanded in recent months to include the App Store and Apple's Health and Fitness teams. Another leadership vacancy is approaching as Jennifer Bailey, the longtime head of Apple Pay and Wallet, retires this year. A successor for the payments business has not yet been named.

The appointments follow John Ternus taking over as CEO on September 1. He is also pushing for faster product launches and fewer management layers, with cuts to hardware engineering program managers already underway.