Greg Joswiak Is Apple’s New SVP of Worldwide Marketing, While Phil Schiller Becomes an Apple Fellow ⇥ cnbc.com

Steve Kovach, CNBC:

Apple announced on Tuesday that longtime marketing boss Phil Schiller will step down from his role and be replaced by one of his deputies, Greg Joswiak, who now has Schiller’s former title of vice president of worldwide marketing.

Schiller will continue to work at Apple as an “Apple Fellow,” the company said, and will continue his role as the boss of Apple’s App Store and company events. Schiller will also continue to report to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Schiller has worked at Apple since 1987.

This is a huge change. Joz and Schiller have each been at Apple for decades; Schiller has been at the executive level since 2002. This is a big promotion for Joz.

It is also a curious change for Schiller. Making him a Fellow seems like a euphemistic way for a graceful eventual transition out of Apple, but I used the word “curious” because Joz’s responsibilities won’t include the App Store or events. This has surely been a difficult year on both fronts — between antitrust concerns and high-profile developer problems on the App Store, and figuring out alternative arrangements for WWDC and product launches. It’s probably not the best time to hand those responsibilities off to someone else. For what it’s worth, Schiller says that he will “keep working [at Apple] as long as they will have me”.

Apple’s executive level has shifted steadily since just before Tim Cook took the reins as CEO. Aside from Cook, Jeff Williams is the only consistent headshot on the page. Eddy Cue was not a member of Apple’s leadership team until 2012, the same year Bob Mansfield announced his retirement only to un-retire as a non-executive.

Please enjoy this classic video of Schiller dropping in at Macworld 1999.