Apple hit by biggest leadership turnover in decades: what’s next?

Apple is undoubtedly going through a rough patch, with multiple execs announcing their departure. The string of high-profile resignations has industry watchers asking: what – or who – is next for Apple?

In less than a week, Apple announced four high-profile exits, all holding senior roles within Tim Cook’s leadership circle. The list includes:

• John Giannandrea, senior vice president for machine learning and AI at Apple, is set to retire in the spring of 2026. He will be replaced by AI researcher Amar Subramanya, who spent 16 years working at Google.
• Kate Adams, general counsel, oversaw legal matters at Apple. She is set to retire next year and will be replaced by Jennifer Newstead, Meta’s chief legal officer.
• Lisa Jackson, vice president for environment, policy, and social initiatives, is also retiring next year. Prior to working at Apple, she was appointed as administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency by President Barack Obama. Jackson’s government affairs staff will also report to Newstead, according to various reports.
• Alan Dye, vice president of human interface design, is leaving Apple to join Meta, where he will work on integrating hardware, software, and AI into consumer devices.

In addition, Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, retired earlier this year after nearly a decade in the role. Chief financial officer Luca Maestri is also reportedly expected to retire soon, after stepping into a smaller role at the start of 2025.

According to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter, more changes are on the horizon. One of Apple’s most crucial execs, Johny Srouji, who is Apple's senior vice president of hardware technologies, recently shared with Cook that he is seriously considering leaving in the near future and informed colleagues that he plans to join another company in the event of his departure. If that is the case, some potential replacements for Srouji are his colleagues, Zongjian Chen or Sribalan Santhanam.

And while some key members are simply retiring, others leave to join the main rivals. Meta has previously poached one of Apple’s key AI executives, Frank Chu, to join Meta Superintelligence Labs, while OpenAI and several smaller companies have poached Apple’s engineers.

Some departures are just part of the normal course of retirement, but others signal a worrying tendency, and Cook is reportedly looking to mitigate potential exits with generous compensation packages for key talent.

What’s next for Apple?

Although speculative, some analysts have suggested that Cook might be preparing to step down. Several people familiar with the matter told The Financial Times that Apple’s board and senior executives have recently started more actively preparing for Cook’s exit.

In turn, Mark Gurman, a well-informed journalist on Apple-related matters, said the news about Cook’s departure is exaggerated.

“Tim Cook won’t be CEO forever, but reports on his imminent departure were premature,” he says while noting that Cook’s succession planning has been underway for years.

Who will eventually succeed Cook? One potential candidate is John Ternus, Apple's senior vice president of Hardware Engineering and a member of Apple's executive leadership team. However, The Financial Times sources said that no final decision has yet been made.

Gurman calls the logic of picking Ternus “straightforward.”

“He is the youngest member of Apple’s executive team and offers the longest potential runway. He oversees Apple’s hardware division at the heart of developing new devices and is highly regarded by Cook and Williams.”

Other candidates are being routinely named, such as Nest Labs founder Tony Fadell, who helped develop Apple’s famous iPod but left the company 15 years ago. However, the chance of the new CEO being an outsider is very small, especially since Cook is expected to step into the role of chairman and still maintain influence.

The Financial Times has previously predicted that Cook’s succession would be announced in January or June 2026, but Gurman argues that it’s unlikely that a departure by the middle of next year is plausible, saying he would be shocked to see the FT’s timeline materialize.

However, even if Cook stays, this doesn’t change the fact that Apple faces a period of leadership turmoil. This is particularly important as the company – despite excellent September quarter results with a revenue of $102.5 billion, growing 8% year over year, coinciding with what Cook called the launch of its “best iPhone lineup ever”, – still lags behind its competitors in the field of AI.

Even though the launch and initial sales of the iPhone 17 series have been promising, things might change as users increasingly factor in AI when making their purchases. Ruoming Pang, Apple’s distinguished software engineer and AI models chief, left Apple along with colleagues to join Meta’s Superintelligence group, which offers massive signing bonuses and other benefits.

Zuckerberg’s personal AI race and the desire to position Meta ahead of AI innovation might be another reason why it seems so attractive to Apple’s AI researchers.

Gurman suggests that if the release of the new Siri, expected in 2026, is unsuccessful, more resignations could follow. This is especially true if rivals appear to be better equipped to develop the next generation of devices around AI.