John Ternus officially took over as Apple CEO today, September 2, as Tim Cook moved into his new role as Executive Chair after leading the company for 15 years. On his first morning in charge, Ternus sent employees a company-wide memo thanking Cook and sharing his excitement about Apple’s upcoming products, including a major launch scheduled for next week.
Ternus’ first memo as CEO described Apple as “the greatest company in the world” and said there is no other team he would rather work with to build its future.
Team,
Today, on my first day as CEO, I just wanted to send a quick note to thank everyone for the warm wishes. I also want to extend my deep appreciation to Tim for sharing so much of his knowledge and experience during this transition, and more importantly, for everything he contributed to Apple over the years. We’re so lucky to have had a CEO who led with his values and with such decency and humanity. We are all better for it, and I’m so grateful he’ll be our executive chairman.
I’m honored to be stepping into this role at what is truly the greatest company in the world, and I am so excited about everything we have in store. We have a huge launch next week that’s going to be phenomenal. Thanks for everything you’ve all done to make it possible.
I’m just as excited about what lies beyond that, including the incredible products already in the works and the ones we haven’t even imagined yet that we’ll dream up and create together. There’s no team in the world I’d rather build the future with.
More to come. In the meantime, thanks for your excellent work!
John
Ternus prepares for his first Apple event as CEO
Ternus joined Apple in 2001 and previously served as senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, giving Apple’s new CEO a product and engineering background after Cook’s operations-focused tenure. Apple has also reorganized parts of its leadership team during the transition, with Johny Srouji becoming chief hardware officer and Laura Legros returning to the company.
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Cook marked his final day as CEO by telling employees that he took “enormous comfort” in handing Apple to someone he described as “brilliant and wonderful and capable.”
Ternus will now make his first major public appearance as CEO at Apple’s September 9 “Surprise and Shine” event, where the company’s “huge launch” will put its new leadership era in the spotlight.
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