New Delhi: After years of anticipation, Apple has announced Jeff Williams as its Chief Operating Officer on Thursday.  Williams fills a role that had been vacant since Tim Cook became the CEO in 2011. Apple also announced Johny Srouji, who has been with Apple for 8 years will be joining as senior Vice President in the exective team, while Phil Schiller’s role will expand to inlcude leadership of the App Store across all Apple platforms. 

Cook said in a statement, “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.” Jeff joined Apple in 1998 as head of worldwide procurement and in 2004 he was named vice president of Operations. Since 2010 he has overseen Apple’s entire supply chain, service and support, and the social responsibility initiatives which protect more than one million workers worldwide. Jeff played a key role in Apple’s entry into the mobile phone market with the launch of iPhone, and he continues to supervise development of Apple’s first wearable product, Apple Watch.

Phil Schiller will focus on strategies to extend the ecosystem Apple customers have come to love when using their iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. 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. Cook said, “Phil is taking on new responsibilities for advancing our ecosystem, led by the App Store, which has grown from a single, groundbreaking iOS store into four powerful platforms and an increasingly important part of our business.” 

In nearly eight years at Apple as V-P of Hardware Technologies, Johny Srouji has built one of the world’s strongest and most innovative teams of silicon and technology engineers, overseeing breakthrough custom silicon and hardware technologies including batteries, application processors, storage controllers, sensors silicon, display silicon and other chipsets across Apple’s entire product line. Educated at Technion, Israel’s Institute of Technology, Johny joined Apple in 2008 to lead development of the A4, the first Apple-designed system on a chip. “We are fortunate to have incredible depth and breadth of talent across Apple’s executive team. As we come to the end of the year, we’re recognizing the contributions already being made by two key executives,” said the CEO.

Tor Myhren will succeed Hiroki Asai, who had earlier announced his retirement after 18 years in the graphic design team and marketing communications. Tor joins Apple from Grey Group, where he has served as Chief Creative Officer and President of Grey New York.  As vice president of Marketing Communications at Apple, Tor will be responsible for Apple’s advertising efforts and will lead a team that spans a broad range of creative disciplines from video, motion graphics and interactive web design to packaging and retail store displays.

“I’m incredibly happy to welcome Tor Myhren, who will bring his creative talents to our advertising and marcom functions,” said Cook.