Apple has announced longtime company veteran John Ternus as the next CEO of the company, succeeding current CEO Tim Cook, who is set to transition to executive chair of Apple’s board of directors later this year.
Ternus’s term as CEO will begin on 1 September. The hardware engineering executive is a longtime Apple insider, indicating the company will stay the course that has led to record profits under Cook’s leadership. Apple’s yearly profit now tops $100bn, and in January it announced record revenue from its iPhones, boosted by renewed demand in China.
“I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward,” Ternus said in a company press release. “Having spent almost my entire career at Apple, I have been lucky to have worked under Steve Jobs and to have had Tim Cook as my mentor. It has been a privilege to help shape the products and experiences that have changed so much of how we interact with the world and with one another.”
Cook will remain as Apple CEO through the summer to aid in the leadership transition. He praised his successor as having “the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honor”.
Ternus started at Apple in 2001 and assumed the role of vice-president of hardware engineering in 2013, then head of the department in 2021, responsible for the physical components that make up Apple products. Among his notable achievements was the development and launch of Apple’s proprietary silicon chips for its Mac line of computers, which saw sales soar after swapping out Intel chips in 2020, per the Wall Street Journal.
New products that debuted under his leadership of the hardware division include the Apple Watch and the AirPods line of headphones, both of which grew into major lines of business for Apple, and the Vision Pro headset, which did not.
The Journal described Ternus as “an affable mechanical engineer” with a management style closer to the calm Cook than to the inspiring but volatile Steve Jobs. His replacement will be Johny Srouji, who previously worked as Apple’s senior vice-president of hardware.
Cook, who joined Apple in 1998 and succeeded Jobs as CEO in 2011, had been engaged in planning his succession for the better part of a year, the New York Times reported in January, after Cook told the company’s board and senior leaders that he wanted to work less. Ternus had been a favorite for replacing Cook, the newspaper reported.
Ternus, a California native, received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, joining the varsity swim team in college, winning several races. After graduating in 1997, he briefly worked at Virtual Research Systems, a virtual reality startup.
Even as Ternus may lead along a similar route that Cook took to lucrative success, he will face pressure to catch up with Apple’s Silicon Valley peers on artificial intelligence, where it has lagged while even while leading in consumer hardware. He will inherit a promised revamp of the Siri virtual assistant and a perceived lack of name-brand consumer AI offerings.
