Ziraat Times Team Report (with inputs from Bloomberg)
India-born Sabih Khan has joined as Apple’s new Chief Operating Officer.
Khan, a 30-year veteran of Apple, joined the company’s executive team as senior vice president of operations in 2019. He took over management of the supply chain at that time, including procurement and manufacturing. Khan will continue to report to Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook.
Sabih Khan (born 1966 in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh) hails from an exporter family. His father, Saeed Khan, managed brass exports locally. Sabih completed his schooling in India before the family relocated to Singapore, later moving to the United States. He earned dual bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University, followed by a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute . Sabih began his career at GE Plastics before joining Apple in 1995 within its procurement team. Over three decades, he climbed the ranks — becoming Senior Vice President of Operations in 2019 — and now steps into the role of Chief Operating Officer, where he’ll oversee Apple’s global supply chain and manufacturing strategy.
When Khan steps into the new role, he’ll contend with challenges ranging from tariff costs to slowing iPhone growth. Apple also is grappling with global regulatory scrutiny and has fallen behind in artificial intelligence. New AI-focused startups are working on hardware products that could displace the company’s iPhone, iPad, Mac and other devices.
Williams, 62, was once considered a possible successor to the 64-year-old Cook, given his title and similarities to his boss. But their small age gap — and Williams’ desire to retire relatively soon — shifted the company’s thinking. Now, John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, is the most likely successor when Cook retires, Bloomberg News has reported.
“Clearly he wasn’t destined to be the Tim Cook replacement,” Bob Mansfield, the company’s former chief of hardware engineering under both Cook and co-founder Steve Jobs, said of Williams.
Williams joined the company in 1998 and took the COO job in 2015. He previously worked at International Business Machines Corp. starting in the 1980s. At Apple, he was known for crafting a supply chain that could handle hundreds of millions of devices a year while sourcing components from thousands of suppliers around the world.
He’s been Cook’s top deputy for more than a decade, overseeing the company’s supply chain and engineering for the Apple Watch. The executive also ran AppleCare customer service. Williams has long been known as a key decision-maker for Apple, and his departure is one of the most significant in the company’s history.
“Sabih is very much cut from the Tim Cook cloth,” said Matthew Moore, a former Apple operations engineer. “Jeff was a little more product-minded; Sabih is just a really brilliant operator and methodical in the same way that Tim would operate.”
Moore added that Khan has already been running Apple’s operations group and that the team “won’t miss a beat.” The concerns will be in the other areas that Williams currently oversees, he said.
The leadership change comes at a trying time for Apple’s operations group, which includes procurement, sustainability and manufacturing teams. Over the past several months, Apple has been shifting iPhone production from China to India in a bid to reduce the impact from Trump administration tariffs. In the coming years, Apple will likely make other adjustments, including moving even more device assembly out of China and potentially adding robotics and other technologies to the production process.
Khan’s new role also means he will be more involved in other challenges, including the company’s artificial intelligence woes. On Monday, Apple’s top executive in charge of AI models was poached by Meta Platforms Inc., and the company continues to consider partnering with outside companies to improve its technology.
It’s also wrestling with regulatory issues, including forced changes to its App Store in the EU and an ongoing US Department of Justice lawsuit that could upend a $20 billion-a-year deal with Google. That all comes as some of Apple’s hardware continues to age, and AI startups are looking to replace the iPhone with newer, voice-controlled products.
With the transition, insiders expect that Khan’s deputy, Priya Balasubramaniam, will take a larger role managing the company’s supply chain.
