The retirement of two high-level Apple executives within a year is rumored to be followed by another major departure in the not too distant future. Here are the most likely candidates.

The senior leadership at Apple has already gone through two retirement-related announcements in the last 12 months. With an aging management team, there's the considerable prospect of there being more changes on the horizon.

According to Mark Gurman in the "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg on Sunday, he discusses the departures of Luca Maestri and the upcoming exit of Jeff Williams from the leadership roster. According to his sources, more exits from "the most senior levels of Apple" are set to come.

The actual subject of the rumors isn't revealed. Gurman expects at least one big name from the company to leave in 2026, if not later in 2025.

Out, but not out

The last two retirement announcements from Apple occurred within a year of each other.

In August 2024, Apple CFO Luca Maestri was confirmed as departing, with Kevan Parekh to take over the role later in the year. After a farewell from CEO Tim Cook in the October 2024 earnings call, Parekh made his first appearance in the position during the January 2025 quarterly results release.

Maestri still remains at Apple and currently sits as the VP of Corporate Services.

By July 2025, Apple COO Jeff Williams was announced to be gradually retiring, vacating his role to Sabih Khan later in the month. However, Williams has stuck around to oversee the design team and is anticipated to actually retire later in the year.

In both cases, senior figures are making way for replacements but stay within Apple, at least until they actually retire. According to Gurman, there is an intention to stagger out the departures for the good of the company.

An aging leadership

The changes at the top force a reshuffling of managerial roles each time, which is to be expected. However, the ages of people at the top of the company indicate that more will be happening in the coming years, too.

Greg Joswiak is 61, Khan is 59, and Eddy Cue is 60, making them closer to retirement than other managerial team members.

Then there's Tim Cook, who said in 2021 that he will "probably" leave Apple within the following ten years.

It is evident that Apple has a lot of succession planning to do, beyond the eventual departure of its current CEO.