Jeff Williams promoted to Apple’s chief operating officer, Phil Schiller to head App Store, Grey’s Tor Myhren hired for marketing and communications in rare management rejig
Jeff Williams has been named Apple's new chief operating officer, in a rare reshuffle of the tech company's senior team.
“We are fortunate to have incredible depth and breadth of talent across Apple’s executive team. As we come to the end of the year, we’re recognising the contributions already being made by two key executives,” said Apple chief Tim Cook.
“Jeff is hands-down the best operations executive I’ve ever worked with, and Johny’s team delivers world-class silicon designs which enable new innovations in our products year after year.”
Johny Srouji has also been promoted from vice president to senior vice president of hardware technologies and joins the executive team.
Williams has been vice president and then senior vice president of operations for the past decade, responsible for ensuring the production of iPhones and iPads from the Foxconn factory where they are made to the Apple shop floor. He has also been involved in the launch of the Apple Watch.
He joins the elite Apple c-suite alongside Cook, finance chief Luca Maestri and design guru Jony Ive. The chief operating officer job has been vacant since Cook himself held the role before becoming boss in 2011.
Meanwhile marketing chief Phil Schiller, who is responsible for introducing many of the new products onstage at Apple's big launch events, will take over the running of the App Store.
“In addition, Phil is taking on new responsibilities for advancing our ecosystem, led by the App Store, which has grown from a single, groundbreaking iOS store into four powerful platforms and an increasingly important part of our business," Cook Continued.
Joining Apple to help lead its marketing and communications efforts is advertising executive Tor Myhren. He was chief creative officer at creative agency Grey and will join in the first quarter of next year reporting directly to Cook.