Apple Appoints Jeff Williams As New COO

Apple has shuffled its executive line-up as former hardware chief Jeff Williams has been promoted to chief operations officer (COO).

Williams, who will report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook, moves up from the post of senior vice president of hardware technologies, where he oversaw the majority of the company’s biggest devices, including leading the Apple Watch project since 2013, which he will remain in charge of.

His replacement as senior vice president is Johny Srouji, who was previously vice president of hardware technologies, having joined Apple in 2008.

Depth of talent

Williams (pictured left) joined Apple in 1998 as head of worldwide procurement, before being named vice president of operations in 2004, where he played a key role in Apple’s entry into the mobile phone market with the launch of iPhone back in 2007.

Before joining Apple, Williams, who holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University and an MBA from Duke University, worked for IBM from 1985 to 1998 in a number of operations and engineering roles.

“We are fortunate to have incredible depth and breadth of talent across Apple’s executive team. As we come to the end of the year, we’re recognizing the contributions already being made by two key executives,” said Tim Cook.

Also changing roles is Phil Schiller, who will now oversee the App Store across all of Apple’s platforms, including the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV, and will be tasked with expanding the reach of the product across the latter two.

“Phil Schiller will focus on strategies to extend the ecosystem Apple customers have come to love when using their iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV,” Cook said.

“Phil is taking on new responsibilities for advancing our ecosystem, led by the App Store, which has grown from a single, groundbreaking iOS store into four powerful platforms and an increasingly important part of our business.”

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