John Ternus (USA, 50 years old) is the perfect match. Apple, which has long been preparing the succession of Tim Cook – current CEO and key figure in the company’s history – does not seem to have prepared any eccentricity to choose its next leader. Ternus, with a solid and brilliant career within the company, in which he holds the role of Senior Vice President Engineering hardwarehe exudes that aura of an impeccable student who gets top marks, is first in swimming and, what’s more, everyone likes him.
Cook, who recently turned 65, has led Apple since 2011, when he succeeded Steve Jobs. In that time, the company’s market capitalization increased from $348 billion to $4 trillion. According to the Financial timesthe company is unlikely to name a new CEO before its next earnings report in late January.
Internal sources cited by Bloomberg point out that Ternus enjoys the full trust of Cook and the board of directors. His combination of youth (50, the same age Cook was when he took over in 2011) and solid technical experience make him an interesting candidate, especially after the departure of other veterans such as Jeff Williams, the former director of operations. He has been with the company for almost 24 years, where he joined in 2001. Today he leads the teams that develop iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Mac and other devices.
Apple has given more and more prominence to Ternus. In May he was responsible for the presentation of the new iPad Pro and iPad Air, and gave a nice image. The previous year he had toured Europe to talk about sustainability, a key topic for Cook. But the clearest sign came in December, in a half-hour television interview focused on chips. It wasn’t his specialty, but he did well. Bloomberg summed it up as “a very important moment.” They tested him and he obeyed.
According to the same source, a person close to management noted that Cook thinks highly of Ternus for his ability to make good presentations, his friendly manner, his caution when communicating via email and his prudence when making decisions. He also emphasized that he shares many management qualities with Cook himself. For his part, Christopher Stringer, former designer of hardware at Apple described him as a reliable person who, in his opinion, did not fail in any of the positions he held.
Ternus was a college swimmer and won the 50-meter freestyle and 200-meter medley in 1994 while competing for the University of Pennsylvania. He studied Mechanical Engineering and graduated in 1997. He then worked as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems, a company dedicated to developing virtual reality technologies. There he participated in the design of helmets for this simulation system and gained hands-on experience with emerging human-machine interface technologies.
In 2001 he joined Apple as part of the product design team, at a decisive moment for the company. Jobs had regained the helm of the company and devices such as the iMac were beginning to mark a new phase for the Cupertino brand, which was preparing to transform the technology industry.
His first assignment was the design of the Apple Cinema Display, a large format external monitor intended for the Mac ecosystem. From that project Ternus began to broaden its scope, participating in the development of various products and consolidating its reputation within production teams. hardware.
After more than a decade with the company, he was named vice president of engineering in 2013 hardware. From that role – and under the supervision of Dan Riccio, then global head of the area – he moved on to coordinate key projects related to the evolution of the Mac, several generations of iPad and products such as AirPods. In 2020, he took over the hardware engineering department of the iPhone, the company’s flagship product.
In early 2021, the company announced Ternus’ promotion to senior vice president, also of engineering. hardware. With this promotion, Ternus became primarily responsible for the development of the physical part of Apple devices. His influence continues to expand: at the end of 2022 he is also assigned the task of overseeing the hardware of the Apple Watch, consolidating virtually all of the company’s device engineering under his direction.
Over the course of his career, this engineer has left a profound mark on virtually the entire Apple product line. He was a central figure in the launch of AirPods, revolutionizing the wireless audio experience and leading the historic transition from Macs to Apple processors. His work also covered other emblematic products, such as the iMac Pro, the modular Mac Pro and the Apple Watch, incorporating sustainability criteria into materials and design.
In an interview with CNBC in 2023, he emphasized the pride he takes in having worked on nearly the company’s entire product lineup, citing AirPods and the move from Macs to Apple Silicon chips in particular as before-and-after achievements. It defends a philosophy based on total integration between hardware AND software as a driver of innovation.
For a company that has made internal stability one of its hallmarks under Cook’s leadership, the simultaneous departure of several top officials represents a notable turnaround. The CEO himself has sent ambiguous messages about his future: in January he told CNBC that he couldn’t imagine “doing nothing” and that he would always want to remain active. Nonetheless, Bloomberg pointed out that he could follow the path of figures like Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, and end up taking on the role of non-executive chairman.
The choice of Ternus would not only confirm Apple’s preference for internal talent, but also its decision to bet on technological innovation. In an age where the iPhone can no longer contain everything, and with challenges like the Apple Vision Pro or the race for artificial intelligence, putting an engineer at the helm could be exactly what Apple needs to write its next chapter.
Proximity to the customer
Another sign that could anticipate the replacement is that in September it was John Ternus who welcomed customers at the Apple store in Regent Street, London. This was the role Tim Cook played in the 2019 reopening of the Fifth Avenue store in New York.
