Tim Cook and His 11 Lieutenants Who Run Apple’s $3.5T Tech Empire
On April 1, 1976, history was made when Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne co-founded Apple and released the company’s Apple I computer. Nearly five decades later, the company’s lasting effects on the tech industry and society are undisputed. It revolutionized the concept of the personal computer when it incorporated a graphic user interface in its 1984 Macintosh and helped reshape the music sector with its 2001 unveiling of the iPod. And in 2007, the introduction of the iPhone completely changed the landscape of mobile phones.
After Jobs passed away in 2011, Apple continued to flourish under his successor Tim Cook’s leadership. In 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded company in the U.S. to be worth $1 trillion. Today, it is the world’s most valuable public company with a market cap of $3.5 trillion.
Apple’s top executive tier currently consists of Cook and 11 senior vice presidents, the majority of whom report directly to him. Here’s a look at the top people heading up Apple’s continued efforts in innovation across products, engineering, marketing and other departments:
Tim Cook, 63, CEO
Cook has been with the iPhone maker for more than a quarter of a century. Having initially joined the company in 1998, his tenure has included stints as chief operating officer and head of Apple’s Macintosh division. In 2011, he stepped up as Apple’s new CEO, succeeding Jobs.
Under Cook’s leadership, Apple saw its annual sales skyrocket from $108 billion in 2011 to $383 billion last year. The executive, who owns a less than 1 percent stake in Apple, has an estimated net worth of $2.2 billion.
Before joining Apple, Cook worked at IBM and Compaq. He has an MBA from Duke University and studied industrial engineering at Auburn University.
Luca Maestri, 61, chief financial officer
Maestri’s responsibilities include managing the company’s accounting, financial planning, real estate and investor relations. His career has included chief financial officer stints at a variety of places including General Motors Europe, Nokia Siemens Network and Xerox. Maestri became Apple’s CFO in 2014 after one year working as its corporate controller.
In August, Maestri revealed that his decade-long tenure as CFO will come to an end at the beginning of next year. Kevan Parekh, Apple’s current vice president of financial planning and analysis, will take his place. “It is the greatest privilege of my professional life to serve the world’s most innovative and admired company,” said Maestri, who will continue leading Apple’s corporate services team, in a statement accompanying the announcement.
Katherine Adams, 60, general counsel
Before joining Apple in 2017 as its general counsel and senior vice president of legal and global security, Adams spent more than a dozen years working at Honeywell as senior vice president and general counsel.
Adams currently oversees legal issues like intellectual property, securities compliance and privacy at Apple. One of the highest-paid corporate lawyers, she reportedly brought home $26.9 million in total compensation last year.
Eddy Cue, 60, senior vice president of services
Cue is one of Apple’s more tenured executives, having been with the company for some 35 years. The executive has played a pivotal role in several of Apple’s key launches over time, including the establishment of Apple’s online store in 1998, iTunes store in 2003 and App store in 2008.
His current responsibilities as senior vice president of services is wide-ranging, including Apple Music, Apple News, Apple TV+, Apple Pay, Apple Card and more. In 2023, Cue notably testified in an antitrust case against Google’s search business, where he defended Apple’s decision to make the company’s search engine the default on iPhones.
John Giannandrea, 50, senior vice president of machine learning and A.I. strategy
Giannandrea stands at the forefront of Apple’s A.I. effort. The executive oversees the company’s A.I. and machine learning strategies and the development of Core ML and Siri technologies to improve Apple’s products. While Apple hasn’t made as aggressive of an A.I. push as its Big Tech rivals, the company in June unveiled “Apple Intelligence,” it’s spin on the hyped technology, across newer iPhones, iPads and Macs.
Before he was poached by Apple in 2018, Giannandrea spent eight years at Google leading the company’s machine intelligence, research and search teams. Earlier in his career, he co-founded the tech companies Tellme Networks and Metaweb Technologies and served as a senior engineer at General Magic.
Greg Joswiak, 61, senior vice president of worldwide marketing
Joswiak has been with Apple his entire career since graduating from college in 1986. Having played a role in launching the company’s first iPod and iPhone, he also worked on its early Macintosh computers and more recently served as vice president of Apple’s product marketing team.
In 2020, Joswiak was promoted to senior vice president of worldwide marketing. He is often referred to by his nickname “Joz,” which stems from the executive’s last name mirroring a combination of Apple founders Jobs’ and Wozniak’s names.
Craig Federighi, 55, senior vice president of software engineering
Federighi first worked with Jobs at NeXT, a technology company the Apple founder established in the mid-1980s after he was briefly pushed out of Apple. After NeXT was acquired by Apple in 1997 and Jobs rejoined his company, Federighi began working at Apple before leaving a few years later to serve as chief technology officer at Ariba, an e-commerce company.
In 2009, however, Fedrighi returned once again to Apple to head its macOS engineering efforts. In 2012, he was promoted to senior vice president and saw the development of iOS added to his responsibilities.
John Ternus, 49, senior vice president of hardware engineering
As head of hardware engineering, Ternus oversees the teams behind products like the iPhone, iPad, Mac and AirPods. The executive previously spent four years working at a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems before joining Apple in 2001. Initially working on the company’s product design team, he became a vice president in hardware 12 years later.
In 2021, Ternus was promoted to senior vice president of engineering. At 49 years old, he is the youngest among Apple’s top executives and has been floated as a possible CEO successor to Cook.
Johny Srouji, 61, senior vice president of hardware technologies
Srouji plays a key role in Apple’s development of critical hardware technologies like custom chips, silicon and batteries. He first joined the company in 2008 to work on the inaugural Apple-designed chip and worked his way up through the company’s hardware division before becoming a senior vice president in 2015.
Before his time at Apple, Srouji spent time in design and managerial roles at Intel and worked on server microprocessors at IBM.
Deirdre O’Brien, 58, senior vice president of retail
Another longtime Apple employee, O’Brien started at the company in 1988. She has held a series of different roles that ranged from working on Macintosh production lines, leading supply-chain teams, overseeing Apple’s people division and launching the company’s first retail store in 2001. Now, as the senior vice president of retail, O’Brien is responsible for the company’s stores and online teams.
The executive is about to have more work on her plate. With the departure of Apple’s chief people officer Carol Surface earlier this month, O’Brien is set to resume her management of the company’s people time while simultaneously overseeing retail.
Jeff Williams, 61, chief operating officer
Another possible successor to Cook is Williams, who has acted as Apple’s chief operating officer since 2015. Following a more than 10-year career at IBM, he joined Apple in 1998 as head of Worldwide Procurement and subsequently worked on Apple’s first iPhone launch.
Since 2010, Williams has led worldwide operations for all products. His diverse responsibilities include leading Apple’s health initiatives and played a large role in the Apple Watch’s development. And following the departure of Apple’s former chief design officer Jony Ive in 2019, Williams has additionally led the company’s design team.
Sabih Khan, 58, senior vice president of operations
While the rest of Apple’s senior vice presidents report directly to Cook, Khan, the head of the company’s worldwide operations, works under Williams. He joined Apple in 1995 after a stint at GE Plastics as an applications development engineer and key account technical leader.
Khan, who became senior vice president of operations in 2019, is in charge of ensuring product quality, product fulfillment functions and Apple’s supplier responsibility programs. During the Covid-19 pandemic, his team made a series of safety changes—including health screenings, protective equipment and social distancing—to protect workers at Apple’s global production facilities. Khan’s responsibilities also include overseeing Apple’s partnerships with suppliers focused on green manufacturing.