Tim Cook's Last Day As CEO: Apple's New Chief John Ternus Faces Major Management Overhaul

Apple is set for a leadership transition as John Ternus takes over as chief executive officer (CEO) from Tim Cook, one of his first major tasks will be reshaping a management team that has largely stayed intact for over a decade.

Tim Cook's exit caps years-long succession plan

Cook, who succeeded Steve Jobs 15 years ago, managed to retain most of Apple's senior leadership throughout his tenure. Mark Gurman, in his latest PowerOn newsletter, notes that Cook kept design chief Jony Ive at Apple in a full-time capacity until around 2015, and the two later worked out an arrangement that kept Ive involved through 2019 in a reduced role as chief design officer, done partly to avoid alarming investors.

The current leadership shift began building in 2024, when four senior figures - Cook himself, the operations chief, the finance chief, and the general counsel - all signalled intentions to step back or retire around the same person. Since then, former CFO Luca Maestri has largely withdrawn from daily operations, ex-COO Jeff Williams departed at the end of 2025, and long-serving executives Kate Adams (general counsel) and Lisa Jackson (environment) have also exited. Cook officially becomes executive chairman on September 1, handing day-to-day control to Ternus.

Retail, hardware and marketing chiefs expected to depart

As per Gurman's reporting, several senior executives are likely to leave within the next few years, forcing Ternus to restructure key divisions faster than Cook ever had to:

- Deirdre O'Brien, who oversees both retail and HR, is reportedly nearing the end of her Apple career after almost four decades with the company. Vanessa Trigub, recently named VP of retail store operations, is being groomed as her likely retail successor, while Cynthia Bowman is floated as a possible internal pick for HR.

- Johny Srouji, Apple's chief hardware officer, is described as having already considered leaving once before agreeing to stay through the Ternus transition. Gurman suggests Srouji could exit within a year or two, once he leaves Apple would likely split hardware into separate engineering and technology divisions, with Tom Marieb tipped for engineering and either Sri Santhanam or Zongjian Chen for the technology/chips side.

- Greg Joswiak, Apple's marketing chief of 40 years, is expected to eventually hand over to either AI marketing lead Lilian Rincon or iPhone marketing veteran Kaiann Drance, according to the report.

- Luca Maestri, still officially VP of corporate services, is expected to fully exit soon, with his remaining oversight of real estate, information security and IT likely folding into current CFO Kevan Parekh's remit.

Cue, Parekh and Khan positioned for bigger roles

The report states that services chief Eddy Cue, CFO Kevan Parekh, and COO Sabih Khan are all expected to take on expanded responsibilities under Ternus, even though none of the three are seen as near-term departures. Gurman adds that Apple recently hired Asha Kamath, formerly PayPal's consumer-business CFO, into a finance-planning role under Parekh — mirroring the path Parekh himself once took. Meanwhile, Khan's deputy Priya Balasubramaniam is tipped for a bigger operations role, and Cue's services empire may eventually be split, with Oliver Schusser and Adrian Perica named as possible successors.

Other developments: Apple Watch and foldable iPhone

Separately, Gurman reports that Apple is testing a redesigned Apple Watch for a possible 2027 launch, along with a heart-rate sensor capable of continuous all-day tracking. He also confirmed that Apple prototyped a Pencil accessory for its upcoming foldable iPhone, though he expects the company to hold off on releasing it given durability concerns around foldable displays.