Apple Names Jeff Williams COO, Phil Schiller Assumes Control of App Store

Apple this morning announced a major shuffling of its executive ranks and the biggest news comes from the chief operating officer position. If you recall, the COO position has been vacant ever since Tim Cook assumed the role as company CEO in 2011. Veteran Apple employee Jeff Williams, who joined the company way back in 1998, takes over the COO position.

“We are fortunate to have incredible depth and breadth of talent across Apple’s executive team,” said Cook. “Jeff is hands-down the best operations executive I’ve ever worked with, and Johny’s team delivers world-class silicon designs which enable new innovations in our products year after year.”

Phil Schiller, currently Apple’s chief marketing officer, will be adding to his responsibilities by heading up the App Store across all Apple platforms (iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Mac). The App Store responsibilities were previously commanded by services chief Eddy Cue, but he already has enough on his plate with Apple Music, the iTunes Store, Apple Pay and iCloud (among other Apple services).

Jeff Williams (L), Phil Schiller (R)

Cook added that wielding power over the App Store is a huge responsibility, as it “has grown from a single, groundbreaking iOS store into four powerful platforms and an increasingly important part of our business.

“Phil now leads nearly all developer-related functions at Apple, in addition to his other marketing responsibilities including Worldwide Product Marketing, international marketing, education and business marketing.”

Apple also announced that Johny Srouji is being promoted from his position as VP of Hardware Technologies, a position he has held for nearly eight years, to SVP of Hardware Technologies. During his tenure at Apple, Srouji has been a driving force in advancing batteries, storage controllers, application processors and helped lead the design of Apple’s landmark A4 processor.

Finally, Tor Myhren will join the Apple executive team in Q1 2016. Myhren will be vacating his position as chief creative officer and president of Grey New York to assume the role of vice president of Marketing Communications at Apple. Myhren will lead Apple’s advertising push that “spans a broad range of creative disciplines from video, motion graphics and interactive web design to packaging and retail store displays.”

Of all the announcements made today, the person that you’ll definitely want to keep an eye on over the years is Jeff Williams. He has been called “Tim Cook’s Tim Cook” and could eventually rise to assume the role as Apple CEO is Cook chooses to step down from his position in the future.