Jeff Williams to be replaced as Apple COO
Some big corporate news from Apple on Tuesday:
Apple today announced Jeff Williams will transition his role as chief operating officer later this month to Sabih Khan, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations as part of a long-planned succession. Williams will continue reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook and overseeing Apple’s world class design team and Apple Watch alongside the company’s Health initiatives. Apple’s design team will then transition to reporting directly to Cook after Williams retires late in the year.
The “long-planned succession” bit is intended to ease speculation that Williams was forced out. Khan, Williams’s longtime lieutenant, certainly has his work cut out for him at a time when Apple’s supply chain is under intense scrutiny all around the world, but most notably by the White House.
Also interesting is that Williams, like semi-retired Apple execs Luca Maestri and Phil Schiller1, will retain a smaller portfolio (at least for a while)—in his case, the design team and Apple Watch. Fans of Apple products who don’t pay attention to the executive minutiae of Apple will probably know Williams best as the face of Apple Watch introductions.
- Stephen Hackett pointed out to me that Schiller became an “Apple Fellow” and Maestri’s announcement never used the word “retire.” So perhaps Williams will actually entirely escape the ring eventually! ↩