Apple chief financial officer Luca Maestri will step down from the role at the beginning of next year, ending a more than decade-long stint as the iPhone-maker’s top finance executive.
Maestri will be succeeded by Kevan Parekh, Apple’s vice-president for financial planning and analysis, the company said on Monday.
Maestri is a core member of Apple’s close-knit top leadership team and a close confidante of chief executive Tim Cook. He will stay at the company to lead its corporate services teams.
He has been a familiar face to investors, participating alongside Cook on the company’s quarterly earnings calls. Maestri joined Apple from Xerox in 2013, and previously worked at Nokia Siemens Networks.
On Monday Cook praised Maestri for being “an extraordinary partner in managing Apple for the long term”, pointing to the company’s financial performance during his tenure.
During Maestri’s tenure Apple has grown in to one of the world’s most valuable companies. Its share price increased from about $20 at the start of 2014 to about $227 today, with its market cap eclipsing $3tn.
The company has also accumulated billions of dollars in cash on hand, despite Maestri announcing the goal of making Apple “net-cash neutral” in 2018. Apple launched a fresh $110bn share buyback in June.
Maestri said in a statement that it had been “the greatest privilege of my professional life” to serve as CFO at the company, adding that he has “enormous confidence in Kevan as he prepares to take the reins”.
Parekh has also been at Apple for more than a decade, working closely with Maestri in Apple’s finance team.
“From our perspective, Apple filling the role with an internal candidate should make the transition a bit smoother, particularly given Mr Parekh’s experience at the company,” Piper Sandler analyst Matt Farrell said in a note on Monday. “However, any change of this magnitude does create some level of uncertainty, especially given the consistency and the history of execution from Mr. Maestri.”
Maestri’s scheduled departure coincides with another recent shake-up in Apple’s management, with one of its top App Store executives, Matt Fischer, announcing his departure last week.
Apple is gearing up to launch its latest smartphone, the iPhone 16, in September, with the company heading into a new era of devices powered by generative AI features.