Apple appoints Jeff Williams as COO; revamps top management

Tech giant Apple on Thursday named Jeff Williams as its chief operating officer (COO) and revamped its top management.

The Cupertino-based firm said Johny Srouji will join Apple's executive team as Senior Vice President for Hardware Technologies.

"Jeff is hands-down the best operations executive I've ever worked with, and Johny's team delivers world-class silicon designs which enable new innovations in our products year after year," Tim Cook was quoted as saying in a statement by Apple.

This is the first time that Apple has filled the COO role since Cook vacated it to succeed Steve Jobs.

Williams joined Apple in 1998 as head of worldwide procurement and in 2004, was named VP Operations. Since 2010, he has overseen Apple's entire supply chain, service and support and social responsibility initiatives.

He played a key role in Apple's entry into the mobile phone market with the launch of iPhone, and he continues to supervise development of Apple's first wearable product, Apple Watch, the statement added.

Phil Schiller, who is currently Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, will expand his role to include leadership of App Store across all Apple platforms.

Apple also announced that Tor Myhren will join the company in the first quarter of 2016 as VP (Marketing Communications), reporting to CEO Tim Cook.

"We are fortunate to have incredible depth and breadth of talent across Apple's executive team. As we come to the end of the year, we're recognising the contributions already being made by two key executives," Cook said.