Apple Design Team Having A Hard Time Dealing With Leadership Changes, Know Who's Leading It Now

Apple has appointed veteran Molly Anderson as the new head of industrial design but is reportedly still looking for a replacement for Evans Hankey or Jony Ive.

As per reports, Molly Anderson is not considered a company vice president, unlike Evans Hankey, who replaced Jony Ive.

Source : Unsplash/Aditya Patil

Apple's industrial design team has been revamped recently, and as per reports, the company is having a hard time adjusting. The team has been dealing with the leadership changes since 2019 following the departure of former design chief Jony Ive, and the difficulties have only popped up since then. Apple now has numerous employees in the design team reporting to veteran Molly Anderson, who has been elevated to industrial design leader, reported Bloomberg.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in his newsletter stated, “Recently, Apple shook things up. Though the company hasn’t named a full replacement for Hankey — and still considers Williams the head of all design at Apple — it elevated veteran Molly Anderson to industrial design leader. The bulk of Apple’s designers now report to her directly instead of Williams.”

He added that Anderson is not considered a company vice president, unlike Evans Hankey, who replaced Jony Ive and Richard Howarth (Apple’s longest-serving designer).

Leadership Struggles

The successor to Ive, Hankey also left Apple in 2022 which was followed by a mass exodus of key design talent. This created a talent as well as leadership vaccum. Apple was trying to fill the talent vaccum with newer people, but the problem was that they had never been under Ive or Steve Jobs. Apple finally placed design department under the purview of the COO Jeff Williams.

Now, it has appointed veteran Anderson as the new head of industrial design. As per Bloomberg, the iPhone maker is still looking for a permanent replacement for Hankey which in simpler words means that the company is still in flux when it comes to its design leadership structure.

Ive, who designed the first iPhone, shared his experience working with Steve Jobs. He said that he felt an instant connection with Jobs when he met him and working with him was the most joyful and extraordinary 15 years of his life.