John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president for Hardware Engineering, has been overseeing Apple design teams since late last year as Apple continues to groom him to replace Tim Cook as CEO, reports Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman (a subscription is required to read the article).
Here is Ternus’ profile at the Apple Leadership page: John Ternus is Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. John leads all hardware engineering, including the teams behind iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, and more.
John joined Apple’s Product Design team in 2001 and has been a vice president of Hardware Engineering since 2013. Throughout his tenure at Apple, John has overseen hardware engineering work on a variety of groundbreaking products including every generation and model of iPad, the latest iPhone lineup, and AirPods. He has been a key leader in the ongoing transition of the Mac to Apple silicon.
Gurman says Ternus is serving the “executive sponsor” of all design on Cook’s management team. In other words, he handles communications between the design staff and the executive team. He also represents the design team in executive gatherings, and manages design team leaders.
Quoting inside sources, Gurman says Cook wants to expose Ternus to more parts of the company’s operations. Design decisions are made by consensus, so while Ternus is taking on a larger role, Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, and Greg Joswiak, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, continue to have a say in Apple’s overall aesthetic.
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