SAN FRANCISCO – Apple 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.

Mr 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.

He will continue to oversee the design team, as well as manage health initiatives, until his departure later in the year. Sabih Khan, 30-year Apple veteran, will replace Mr Williams as COO, while the company’s design team will shift to reporting directly to chief executive officer Tim Cook, the tech giant announced on July 8.

When Mr 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 start-ups are working on hardware products that could displace the company’s iPhone, iPad, Mac and other devices. 

Mr 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 Mr 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 Mr Cook retires, Bloomberg News has reported.

Mr Williams joined the company in 1998 and took the COO job in 2015. He previously worked at IBM 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.

“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.”

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. 

Mr Khan’s new role also means he will be more involved in other challenges, including the company’s AI woes. On July 7,

by Meta Platforms, 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 European Union and an ongoing US Department of Justice lawsuit that could upend a US$20 billion (S$25.6 billion)-a-year deal with Google. That all comes as some of Apple’s hardware continues to age, and AI start-ups are looking to replace the iPhone with newer, voice-controlled products. 

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

The departure is a continued changing of the guard for Apple. In 2024, 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. BLOOMBERG

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