Multiple retirements and a surprise departure has caused quite the change to Apple's leadership page. Here's how Apple's executive structure is expected to look in early 2026.
The body of people who run a company isn't static, as people join and leave organizations, and change their roles within them, all the time. With about 164,000 people in its ranks, Apple isn't immune to this phenomenon at all.
That said, while most changes will be at low and mid-tier levels of the organizational chart, alterations at the top can have a big impact on everyone else below. Changes at a senior level are certainly impactful, C-level especially so.
While the general corporate landscape at Apple has stayed pretty even with few major changes through 2025, more changes are inevitable. Toward the end of the year, the announcements built up, warning that numerous key executives were moving on to other things, such as retirement.
By the looks of things, the corporate structure of Apple in 2026 will have quite a few changes compared to its 2025 state, explains The Information. In its estimation, the org chart hasn't really seen many changes compared to its last major update over six years ago.
The company still has about 100 people in VP and SVP roles, which has largely remained unchanged since 2019.
This is what the top of that corporate layout should look like, based on the announced changes for 2026 and what has already changed before the end of the year.
The inbound org chart
With the late 2025 announcements to take on board, this is what the corporate layout at the head of Apple should look like a few months into 2026.
Expected Apple org chart for 2026
Cook stays CEO
The head of the company is CEO Tim Cook. For the moment, that doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon. Or at least for the purposes of this article.
We know that Apple, like other major companies, has some form of succession plan in place. Cook's exit is already planned for, but the spate of leadership change announcements has increased the rumors surrounding his departure.
There are rumors that he will be stepping down sometime in 2026. However, AppleInsider reckons he will be around until at least 2029, in part to handle the current Trump Administration.
More appropriately for Apple, this would enable the company to perform more long-term planning for his succession. Inbound executives will be more comfortable in their roles at that time, and Cook will have had more of an opportunity to prepare whoever will replace him for the job.
Operations lead: Jeff Williams to Sabih Khan
While initially announced in July, Jeff Williams departed from his long-time role as Chief Operating Officer. It was a long transition, as he stuck around to monitor the design team until he officially retired in November.
Williams was replaced by Sabih Khan as COO, who reports directly to Tim Cook.
AI: SVP John Giannandrea to VP Amar Subramanya
In December, following months of internal reorganizing, John Giannandrea was announced in December to be stepping down from his role as SVP of Machine Learning and AI Strategy. He will serve as an advisor until spring 2026, when he will retire from Apple.
His replacement will be Amar Subramanya, a former Microsoft AI executive, who will become the VP of AI. The job name change may be small, but it may be a more specialized AI-specific role than under Giannandrea's management.
Most of what Giannandrea managed will instead be the responsibility of Eddy Cue, SVP of Services, and COO Khan.
Subramanya will manage Apple Foundational Models, ML Research, and AI Safety and Evaluation. He will be reporting to the SVP of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi.
Environment and Policy: VP Lisa Jackson and General Counsel Kate Adams to SVP Jennifer Newstead
While you will often see a role being broken down into multiple versions, sometimes the role distribution can be a bit messier.
In December, Apple VP for Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives Lisa Jackson and Apple General Counsel Kate Adams will be retiring in 2026. Jackson will be leaving in January, while Adams will go in March.
In response, Apple is both combining the roles and splitting them apart. A new role called SVP of General Counsel and Government Affairs will be created for Jennifer Newstead, who will report to Cook from January.
Jackson's other responsibilities, namely the Environment and Social Initiatives management, will be handled by COO Khan.
Design: Alan Dye to Steve Lemay
Another shock December announcement was Alan Dye, Apple's head of design. Rather than a retirement, Dye is instead heading over to Meta, where he will become Chief Design Officer on December 31.
Apple has confirmed the Dye poaching by issuing a statement about his replacement. Steve Lemay, a long-time Apple designer, will be taking over the design chief position.
Change is inevitable
With Apple's wealth of SVPs, VPs, and unique managerial roles like Phil Schiller's "Apple Fellow" designation, there are way more people involved than could be covered in a single article.
Indeed, there are probably other changes to the top of the corporate structure that could be discussed, but they simply don't get reported as much. With so many lieutenants for Cook to command, only the major changes get column inches.
That said, it's also quite telling that there haven't been as many reports on these bigger role switches over the long term. We're seeing multiple retirement announcements in quick succession at the end stages of 2025.
There were some in 2024, such as Luca Maestri moving out from CFO to another role, but not to the same degree.
While some could read the string of announcements as being trouble at the top of Apple, it may not be the case. Looking over the longer term, it could simply be a correction from years of minimal changes in leadership.
We can certainly expect some form of reshuffle when Cook eventually departs, as a clearing of the house for the inbound CEO. But for the moment, consider this to be more a blip or a minor correction for a company that keeps its executives around for a long time.
