New report says John Ternus is likely Tim Cook’s successor (not that the current CEO is expected to leave anytime soon)

A new report from Bloomberg if CEO Tim Cook were to step down soon, he would likely be replaced by Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams.

However, Williams, who’s 61 this year, is only two years Cook’s junior, and company insiders say they think it’s now unlikely he’ll be the new long-term chief. Apple’s board would probably want an executive who, like Cook and Jobs, would stick around for at least a decade. 

“If you asked me five years ago, it was very clear Jeff was leading the pack to become CEO,” one longtime Apple executive told Bloomberg. “But the slowness to refresh the C-suite leaves a problem with who you can bring on board.”

The article says Cook is likely to remain CEO for at least another three years. If Cook were to stay that long, people within Apple say, the most likely successor would be John Ternus, the hardware engineering chief. 

“In a company whose success has always come from building category-defining gadgets, the ascension of a hardware engineering expert to the CEO job would seem logical. Ternus, who’s not yet 50, would also be more likely than other members of the executive team to stick around for a long time, potentially providing another decade or more of Cook-esque stability,” the Bloomberg article says.

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. 

According to the Sellers Research Group (that’s met) another likely candidate to succeed Cook is Craig Federighi. He’s the current senior vice president of software engineering at the company? He seems like a natural heir to the throne and he is, arguably, the best “face” of Apple during online and live media events.

Federighi oversees the development of iOS and macOS. He returned to Apple in 2009 to lead macOS engineering, and in 2012 took on responsibility for iOS as well.

Prior to his return, Federighi worked at NeXT, followed by Apple, and then spent a decade at Ariba, an internet e-commerce pioneer where he held several roles including chief technology officer. Craig holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.