Tim Cook has now led Apple longer than Steve Jobs ever did. Handpicked by Jobs himself, Cook inherited not just a company but an entire philosophy built around products, secrecy, discipline, and long-term vision. Under his leadership Apple became the first $3 trillion company, expanded deeply into services, built its own silicon, and turned privacy into a core pillar of its brand. But as the years pass, the question that quietly circles inside Cupertino and across Wall Street becomes unavoidable: who comes next.
Apple is not a company that improvises leadership. Succession planning is continuous, and a small circle of executives already operate at a level that resembles CEO responsibility. These are not simply department heads. They manage global ecosystems, trillion-dollar platforms, and entire supply chains that span continents. Among them, five names appear most often when analysts, developers, and even Apple insiders discuss the future of the Apple CEO role.
Eddy Cue
Eddy Cue runs Apple’s Services business, which includes Apple Music, Apple TV, iCloud, the App Store, Apple Pay, Apple Arcade, and Apple News. Under his leadership, Services has grown into one of Apple’s largest and most profitable divisions, generating tens of billions of dollars annually. Cue is known inside Apple as a dealmaker who understands both Hollywood and Silicon Valley. He has built partnerships with major studios, sports leagues, banks, and content creators while keeping Apple’s ecosystem tightly integrated.
What makes Cue a serious Apple next CEO candidate is his understanding of long-term platform economics. Services are not just subscriptions; they are retention engines. Cue’s team designs systems that keep users inside Apple’s ecosystem for years, from music libraries to cloud storage to entertainment libraries. That ability to think in terms of lifetime customer value rather than product cycles is exactly the kind of mindset a future CEO would need as Apple becomes less dependent on single-device sales.
Craig Federighi
Craig Federighi is the public face of Apple’s software world. As head of Software Engineering, he oversees iOS, macOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and now visionOS. He is also the executive most closely associated with WWDC, where Apple communicates its roadmap to millions of developers. Federighi’s ability to translate complex engineering into approachable storytelling has made him one of the most recognizable Apple executives outside Cupertino.
Beyond presentation, Federighi controls the glue that holds Apple’s ecosystem together. Software defines how Apple’s hardware, services, and AI interact. As Apple moves deeper into on-device intelligence, privacy-preserving AI, and cross-device workflows, software leadership becomes even more central to the company’s identity. A CEO who understands this layer from the inside would be well positioned to guide Apple through the next decade of platform evolution.
Deirdre O’Brien
Deirdre O’Brien leads Apple’s Retail and People organizations, giving her direct responsibility for how Apple interacts with both its customers and its employees. Apple’s retail stores are not just sales channels; they are brand theaters, support centers, and community hubs. O’Brien oversees more than 500 stores worldwide and the tens of thousands of employees who operate them.
Her role also covers human resources, which in a company of Apple’s scale means managing culture, hiring, and internal leadership development. A future Apple CEO will need to balance innovation with organizational stability. O’Brien’s experience managing frontline operations and internal talent pipelines gives her a perspective that few other executives have: she sees both how customers experience Apple and how employees build it.
Johny Srouji
Johny Srouji is the architect behind Apple silicon. As head of Hardware Technologies, he leads the teams that design the chips inside iPhones, iPads, Macs, and now Apple’s data centers and AI infrastructure. The transition away from Intel to Apple’s own M-series processors is widely considered one of the most successful technology pivots in modern computing.
Srouji represents Apple’s engineering-first future. Control over silicon gives Apple performance, power efficiency, and security advantages that competitors struggle to match. As AI becomes more hardware-dependent, especially for on-device processing and privacy, Srouji’s domain becomes even more strategic. A CEO with deep chip expertise would put Apple in a strong position against rivals who depend on third-party silicon.
John Ternus
John Ternus runs Apple’s Hardware Engineering group, overseeing the design and development of iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and emerging devices. Compared to some of his peers, Ternus is younger and often described internally as energetic and bold. He works at the intersection of industrial design, engineering, and manufacturing, which is where Apple’s products take physical form.
Ternus has become increasingly visible in Apple keynotes, presenting new Macs, chips, and devices. That visibility is not accidental. Apple tends to prepare potential leaders by gradually exposing them to the public. A CEO with hands-on experience building and shipping hardware at Apple’s scale would bring a practical, product-driven perspective to the role.
Who Will Become the Apple Next CEO
Apple’s board will not choose a successor based on charisma or popularity. The next CEO will need to manage a company that is part technology platform, part financial services provider, part media network, and part global manufacturer. All five of these executives already operate at that scale in their own domains.
The Apple next CEO will likely come from this group, not because of ambition, but because they already run pieces of Apple that are larger than most Fortune 500 companies. When Tim Cook eventually steps aside, the transition will look smooth on the surface. But behind the scenes, it will mark the beginning of a new era for one of the most powerful companies in the world.
