After 15 transformative years at the helm of the world’s most valuable company, Tim Cook is stepping aside as chief executive of Apple, with hardware engineering chief John Ternus set to inherit one of the most coveted seats in global business.
The Cupertino-based group confirmed on Monday that Cook, 65, will become executive chairman of the board on 1 September, with Ternus, senior vice president of hardware engineering, promoted to chief executive on the same date. The succession, approved unanimously by directors, caps what insiders describe as a patient, long-planned handover rather than a hurried passing of the baton.
Cook will remain chief executive through the summer, working alongside his successor to ensure a seamless transition. In his new chairman’s role, he is expected to focus on global policy engagement, a brief that has grown increasingly weighty as Apple navigates tariff regimes, artificial intelligence regulation and geopolitical pressure on its supply chain.
“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple,” Cook said in a statement. “John Ternus has the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honour. He is without question the right person to lead Apple into the future.”
The numbers behind Cook’s tenure make for arresting reading. Since succeeding the late Steve Jobs in 2011, Apple’s market capitalisation has swelled from roughly $350bn to $4tn, a gain of more than 1,000 per cent. Annual revenue has almost quadrupled, climbing from $108bn in the 2011 financial year to more than $416bn in 2025. Cook has added Apple Watch, AirPods and Vision Pro to the firm’s hardware roster, while the Services division he championed now generates more than $100bn a year, a standalone business that would rank inside the Fortune 40.
For British SMEs that built livelihoods around Apple’s ecosystem, from App Store developers in Shoreditch to hardware resellers on the high street, Cook’s legacy has been the steady expansion of a platform that now reaches 2.5 billion active devices across more than 200 countries. Apple’s global retail footprint has more than doubled during his reign.
Ternus, who has spent almost a quarter of a century at the company, represents a return to the engineer-led tradition established by Jobs. He joined Apple’s product design team in 2001, rose to vice president of hardware engineering in 2013 and entered the executive suite in 2021. His fingerprints are on every major product line, from iPad and AirPods to the recent MacBook Neo and the iPhone 17 range, including the ultra-slim iPhone Air that launched last autumn.
“I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward,” Ternus said. “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.”
A Mechanical Engineering graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Ternus cut his teeth at Virtual Research Systems before joining Apple. He has overseen the transition to Apple-designed silicon, the push into recycled aluminium and 3D-printed titanium, and the evolution of AirPods into an over-the-counter hearing aid, a rare example of Big Tech hardware being cleared as a bona fide medical device.
In a further reshuffle, Arthur Levinson, Apple’s non-executive chairman for the past 15 years, will step back to become lead independent director when the new regime takes effect. Ternus will join the board the same day.
“Tim’s unprecedented and outstanding leadership has transformed Apple into the world’s best company,” said Levinson. “We believe John is the best possible leader to succeed Tim.”
Cook’s departure from the chief executive’s office closes a chapter defined as much by stewardship as by showmanship. Where Jobs dazzled, Cook disciplined — turning a maverick product house into an operational juggernaut, reducing Apple’s carbon footprint by more than 60 per cent against 2015 levels even as revenue roughly doubled, and placing privacy at the heart of the brand proposition. Whether Ternus can continue that trajectory while reigniting the pace of hardware breakthrough will define the next era in Cupertino, and reverberate through every business, large and small, that lives within Apple’s orbit.
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Cook hands Apple’s reins to Ternus as engineering chief prepares for top job