Apple COO Jeff Williams To Retire In Major Changing Of Guard

Apple Inc. Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams is retiring as the company’s longtime No. 2, marking a major changing of the guard at an already tumultuous time for the iPhone maker.

Williams will step down as COO this month before retiring from the company later in the year, Apple said in a statement Tuesday. He will continue to oversee the design team, as well as manage health initiatives, until his departure. Sabih Khan will replace Williams as COO, while Apple’s design team will shift to reporting directly to Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook.

Khan, a 30-year veteran of Apple, joined the company’s executive team as senior vice president of operations in 2019. He took over management of the supply chain at that time, including procurement and manufacturing. Bloomberg News reported last year that Apple had primed him to eventually succeed Williams. Khan will continue to report to Cook and will likely add divisions like AppleCare to his existing operations.

When Khan steps into the new role, he’ll contend with challenges ranging from tariff costs to slowing iPhone growth. Apple also is grappling with global regulatory scrutiny and has fallen behind in artificial intelligence. New AI-focused startups are working on hardware products that could displace the company’s iPhone, iPad, Mac and other devices.

Williams, 62, was once considered a possible successor to the 64-year-old Cook, given his title and similarities to his boss. But their small age gap — and Williams’ desire to retire relatively soon — shifted the company’s thinking. Now, John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, is the most likely successor when Cook retires, Bloomberg News has reported.

“Clearly he wasn’t destined to be the Tim Cook replacement,” Bob Mansfield, the company’s former chief of hardware engineering under both Cook and co-founder Steve Jobs, said of Williams. “He’s about the same age as Tim, so that wouldn’t make much sense. The operations team at Apple is really going to miss Jeff.”

Williams joined the company in 1998 and took the COO job in 2015. He previously worked at International Business Machines Corp. starting in the 1980s. At Apple, he was known for crafting a supply chain that could handle hundreds of millions of devices a year while sourcing components from thousands of suppliers around the world.

He’s been Cook’s top deputy for more than a decade, overseeing the company’s supply chain and engineering for the Apple Watch. The executive also ran AppleCare customer service. Williams has long been known as a key decision-maker for Apple, and his departure is one of the most significant in the company’s history.

“Jeff’s importance and contributions to Apple have been enormous, although perhaps not always obvious to the general public,” said Tony Blevins, a former Apple operations vice president who reported to Williams until the end of 2022. “As a shareholder, I am saddened. Time takes its toll, and it’s almost as if the band is dissolving. Jeff will be sorely missed.”

Apple didn’t say where Williams’ other responsibilities, including engineering for the Apple Watch and health technologies, would be placed within the company. But, earlier this year, the company relocated other hardware initiatives, including its Vision Pro headset and robotics unit, to Ternus. It also gave some additional software teams, such as the Siri voice assistant and visionOS software, to Craig Federighi, head of software engineering.

“Jeff’s true legacy can be seen in the amazing team he’s created and, while he’ll be greatly missed, he leaves the work of the future in incredible hands,” Cook said in a prepared statement.

Mansfield added that Williams will be difficult to replace given that he “had a lot of tentacles” and responsibilities across the company.

“Sabih is very much cut from the Tim Cook cloth,” said Matthew Moore, a former Apple operations engineer. “Jeff was a little more product-minded; Sabih is just a really brilliant operator and methodical in the same way that Tim would operate.”

Moore added that Khan has already been running Apple’s operations group and that the team “won’t miss a beat.” The concerns will be in the other areas that Williams currently oversees, he said.

Myoung Cha, who reported to Williams in the health group until 2021, said the outgoing COO’s “personal passion for health” helped shape the Apple Watch and that his presence on the team will be “hugely missed.”

The leadership change comes at a trying time for Apple’s operations group, which includes procurement, sustainability and manufacturing teams. Over the past several months, Apple has been shifting iPhone production from China to India in a bid to reduce the impact from Trump administration tariffs. In the coming years, Apple will likely make other adjustments, including moving even more device assembly out of China and potentially adding robotics and other technologies to the production process.

Khan’s new role also means he will be more involved in other challenges, including the company’s artificial intelligence woes. On Monday, Apple’s top executive in charge of AI models was poached by Meta Platforms Inc., and the company continues to consider partnering with outside companies to improve its technology.

It’s also wrestling with regulatory issues, including forced changes to its App Store in the EU and an ongoing US Department of Justice lawsuit that could upend a $20 billion-a-year deal with Google. That all comes as some of Apple’s hardware continues to age, and AI startups are looking to replace the iPhone with newer, voice-controlled products.

In his role as COO, Williams had been one of the main faces of the company, typically presenting new Apple Watches and health-related upgrades during keynote presentations. Khan, on the other hand, has been more low-profile, rarely making public appearances on behalf of Apple. In the COO job, Khan will likely need to take a more public role.

With the transition, insiders expect that Khan’s deputy, Priya Balasubramaniam, will take a larger role managing the company’s supply chain. Last year, Apple elevated Molly Anderson, a longtime member of its industrial design group, to be vice president of hardware design reporting to Williams. Her peer for user interface design, Alan Dye, has also long reported to Williams.

The departure is a continued changing of the guard for Apple. Last year, Luca Maestri, its longtime chief financial officer, stepped down from that role into a smaller position that primes him for retirement. Apple’s former hardware engineering boss, Dan Riccio, retired in 2024. And Phil Schiller, a longtime marketing leader, stepped into a lesser role overseeing the App Store in 2020. A year before that, Jony Ive, its longtime design mastermind, left to start his own design firm.

Most of Apple’s top executives are around the same age, and a sweeping transition has long been expected by insiders.