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Apple has promoted Sabih Khan to chief operating officer, putting him in charge of the company’s supply chain when the tech giant and its peers are navigating Donald Trump’s trade war.
Khan, who joined Apple in 1995, will take over at the end of the month from his current boss Jeff Williams, who led the development of the Apple Watch, as part of what the company described as a “long-planned succession.”
Chief executive Tim Cook described Sabih as a “brilliant strategist” and one of the “central architects” of Apple’s supply chain.
Williams, a 27-year veteran of the company, took over leadership of Apple’s vast supply chain in 2015 and had been viewed as a potential successor to Cook, who held the COO role before being appointed chief executive.
A longtime protégé and close confidante of Cook, Williams’ appointment marks the second major move in Apple’s top team this year, after longtime chief financial officer Luca Maestri stepped down from the role in January.
The appointment comes as Apple faces challenges, including threats from Trump that the company and rival Samsung will be hit with 25 per cent tariffs unless they shift production of their devices to the US.
Trade relations between China and the US have improved recently, but the US president’s volatile approach to trade policy has complicated Apple’s task in managing its vast global supply chain.
Trump’s threat to the company marked an escalation of what he described as “a little problem with Tim Cook”, who in May said factories in India would supply the “majority” of iPhones sold in the US as soon as next year in response to high American tariffs on goods made in China.
Another recent leadership change saw Mike Rockwell, the executive behind the Vision Pro headset, take over the Siri product division from John Giannandrea, an artificial intelligence specialist poached from Google.
Sabih had “helped pioneer new technologies in advanced manufacturing, overseen the expansion of Apple’s manufacturing footprint in the US, and helped ensure that Apple can be nimble in response to global challenges”, Cook said in a statement on Tuesday.
Khan has been Apple’s senior vice-president of operations since 2019, with responsibility for product quality and overseeing planning, manufacturing partners and logistics.
Williams would continue to oversee Apple’s design team and the company’s health initiatives, but the design unit would transition to reporting directly to Cook after Williams retired “late in the year”, the company said.
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