Sabih Khan is the chief working officer at Apple, however whereas he has been within the function for lower than a yr, his tenure at Apple has lasted for many years. Here is all you might want to know concerning the man in command of Apple’s operations.
In the case of Apple executives, Sabih Khan might be one of many lesser-known personalities. Whereas CEO Tim Prepare dinner is legendary, as are different managerial members like Craig Federighi and predecessor Jeff Williams, Khan has been much less outstanding within the firm to this point.
That’s partially resulting from having solely been COO for the group for a really brief time period in comparison with his govt friends. As he spends extra time within the outstanding function, he’ll turn out to be extra well-known outdoors of the corporate, however it’s going to take some time for him to turn out to be extra established.
Nevertheless, whereas he hasn’t spent a very long time on the high of the company meals chain, he has been with Apple for fairly just a few years. He is likely one of the veteran members of employees who’ve watched the corporate develop in leaps and bounds throughout his time there.
That is the story of how Khan went from India to iPhone.
Faculty and pre-Apple profession
Born in 1966, Sabih Khan was initially raised in Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, India. Whereas he was in India for his early life, up till the fifth grade, that did not final for lengthy.
He moved together with his household to Singapore on the age of ten, the place he accomplished his pre-college education. The change introduced Khan to a metropolis with commerce in its coronary heart, which additionally allowed him to embrace a multicultural society.
His training continued in america, securing bachelor’s levels in Economics and Mechanical Engineering from Tufts College in Massachusetts. After graduating in 1988, he moved to pursue additional research on the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
He would finally earn himself a grasp’s diploma in Mechanical Engineering.
Finally, Khan moved into the world of labor, and like many different long-term Apple workers, it is not an in depth record of corporations. His first, and solely, function between training and Apple was at GE Plastics.
At GE Plastics, he was an functions improvement engineer and key account technical chief, which uncovered him to superior materials manufacturing processes. This was a very good formative base earlier than he moved over to Apple, serving to him perceive manufacturing earlier than working for such a large-scale producer.
The beginning of three a long time
Khan began his tenure at Apple in 1995, becoming a member of its procurement workforce. This was a task that required Khan and different workforce members to cope with buying elements and supplies to fabricate Apple’s merchandise.
Given his work at GE Plastics would’ve concerned coping with suppliers, producers, and shoppers, this function was solely inside Khan’s wheelhouse.
This was within the pre-iPhone period at Apple, when the Energy Macintosh was the principle product line for the corporate. It was additionally across the time co-founder Steve Jobs returned to Apple and have become the interim CEO.
Steve Jobs launching the very first iMac again in 1998
This was a turbulent time for the corporate, with Jobs making vital modifications that basically modified the best way that Apple functioned and constructed merchandise for shoppers and enterprise customers.
Inside only a few years of being on the firm, his workforce needed to cope with sourcing for a brand new groundbreaking product that Apple would convey out in 1998. The iMac was a serious success for the struggling firm.
This success was then adopted by different main merchandise within the historical past of the corporate, such because the PowerBook G3, the Apple Cinema Show, and the iPod in 2001. In every case, Khan and his colleagues used their expertise to safe the supplies and {hardware} wanted for these merchandise.
Apple describes Khan as having “performed an vital function in delivering every of Apple’s revolutionary merchandise to market.”
Manufacturing progress and management
Whereas present CEO Tim Prepare dinner is considered as one of many driving forces behind Apple’s huge provide chain, Khan was additionally a part of the identical story. Certainly, quite a lot of it might be put all the way down to Khan’s work in procurement that helped result in different issues.
From 2007 to 2019, Khan was one of many individuals who helped develop and significantly increase the availability chain on the whole. Working to make offers with suppliers and contract producers, Khan was in a position to assist Apple safe an operation that would simply construct merchandise at scale.
These long-term agreements weren’t simply to safe provides, but additionally to take care of a excessive commonplace of development all through the availability chain itself. This included conducting audits of factories to make sure that they had been following laws whereas additionally working to provide high-quality elements.
A Houston manufacturing facility that Apple has invested in — picture credit score: Apple
This manifested extra publicly as common Provider Duty Reviews, which frequently concerned lots of of audits throughout the availability chain. For instance, in 2013, there have been 393 audits in whole, up 72 % from the earlier yr.
The audits uncovered occasions that Apple was eager to appropriate earlier than they grew to become a main downside. The place potential, it might create measures to guard employees from being underage, in addition to minimizing exploitation of employees.
At a time when shoppers had been getting involved about the place their merchandise got here from, the audits had been a method for Apple to point out it cared about its distributed workforce, in addition to the legislation.
His work within the area and workforce management caught the attention of his superiors, particularly resulting from the way it helped develop the corporate much more. It inevitably led to extra promotional prospects. This included main the operations workforce earlier than ascending to the chief stage.
Government materials
On June 27, 2019, Apple introduced that Khan was being promoted to Senior Vice President of Operations. This was an govt function the place he can be put in command of extra of Apple’s general operation.
He reported to then-COO Jeff Williams earlier than turning into SVP, and he continued to take action afterwards.
On the time, Prepare dinner described Khan as having led Apple’s operations workforce “with coronary heart,” managing a world workforce that handled employees with dignity and respect, whereas additionally serving to to guard the setting.
The environmental remark wasn’t a throwaway bit for the press launch. That workforce had developed a brand new alloy enabling the MacBook Air and Mac mini to make use of 100% recycled aluminum.
The operations workforce additionally spearheaded provider partnerships to make manufacturing greener on the whole.
Williams mentioned he had labored with Khan for greater than 20 years, insisting that there wasn’t a extra proficient operations govt anyplace on the planet.
“He’s a world-class chief and collaborator, and I’ve little question that he would be the greatest chief of the Ops workforce in Apple’s historical past.”
Below his new SVP function, Khan was answerable for “making certain product high quality and overseeing planning, procurement, manufacturing, logistics, and product success features,” Apple mentioned within the press launch.
This was a task that, general, was just like the work carried out by Tim Prepare dinner within the years earlier than he grew to become CEO.
Whereas he had a brand new seat on the desk, it wasn’t lengthy earlier than Khan can be examined in his new function.
World manufacturing points
Inside his first yr as SVP of Operations, Khan needed to cope with the huge downside of COVID-19. With the sheer dimension of Apple’s operation, that meant tens of hundreds of individuals working for provide chain companions who had their lives and work for Apple affected by the pandemic.
As revealed through the annual Provider Duty Progress report in Might 2020, Khan helped work with suppliers to develop and execute a plan that maintained manufacturing as a lot as potential. All whereas retaining the well being of its workers in thoughts.
This included mandating well being screenings, supplying and requiring using private protecting tools, and implementing social distancing. This latter level, lowering density inside workspaces, was troublesome for a provide chain that steadily relied on in-person working, particularly for the armies of assemblers.
Apple mitigated this downside by having suppliers reconfigure and redesign flooring plans at factories wherever wanted to permit for social distancing. It additionally applied extra versatile work hours to reduce the variety of individuals at a location, whereas nonetheless sustaining employment and manufacturing ranges.
The corporate additionally shared its office well being and security plans with others within the trade.
The trouble labored for essentially the most half. By utilizing strategies like closed-loop manufacturing, Apple’s provide chain companions had been in a position to keep open and keep away from hassle, regardless of coping with overzealous and overly stringent native insurance policies at some places.
Because the pandemic continued, the services had been put beneath pressure, regardless of the most effective efforts of Apple’s operations groups.
The worst flare-ups occurred throughout some manufacturing facility riots.
One manufacturing facility in Shanghai rioted in Might 2022 after workers had been pissed off by elevated restrictions throughout lockdown, applied by native authorities.
Exterior Foxconn Zhengzhou
One other occurred in November 2022, with Foxconn’s principal iPhone manufacturing facility in Zhengzhou turning into a hotspot resulting from complaints over pay and situations.
Within the years since, Khan’s workforce has labored with the consequences of the pandemic and different world-impacting occasions in thoughts, steadily redefining the availability chain itself.
Whereas it has been a primarily China-centric program, beneath Khan’s watch, Apple unfold out its manufacturing into different areas. It was a plan to decentralize manufacturing by having a number of manufacturing hubs, making certain Apple might nonetheless make merchandise regardless of any future interruptions.
This additionally included a return to India for Khan. Apple’s second main manufacturing hub was, over a few years and due to manufacturing incentives, constructed within the nation.
In its present state, Apple now has the power to obtain iPhones for numerous markets from India or China, relying on which is extra sensible.
This grew to become unexpectedly helpful through the U.S.-China commerce warfare, in addition to the later world tariff modifications, each beneath the presidencies of Donald Trump. Within the latter case, and going through excessively excessive tariffs affecting China, Apple shifted the sourcing of iPhones for the U.S. market to largely stem from India.
Chief Working Officer
In July 2025, Khan’s work in operations was rewarded with one other promotion, following a outstanding retirement. Apple had introduced that Jeff Williams was retiring from his place of Chief Working Officer after 15 years and would go away later within the yr.
Khan was named to be Williams’ successor as COO, which he took in July. Williams managed design at Apple for just a few extra months, formally retiring in November 2025.
As COO, Khan experiences on to Prepare dinner, however his remit as COO is not as expansive as beneath Williams’ management, with watchOS software program improvement and well being software program engineering groups being managed beneath the SVP of Software program Engineering, Craig Federighi. Comparable strikes had been additionally made with design, with John Ternus the present govt sponsor for that work.
Khan’s work did increase in comparison with his earlier place, nevertheless. This included supervision of AppleCare, accessibility, environmental, and social initiatives.
There was additionally extra oversight of the Better China workforce, an vital a part of the enterprise for each manufacturing and gross sales.
Inside months of taking his seat, Khan held a gathering with China’s worldwide commerce negotiator. The assembly was to proceed the courtship by Williams of Apple’s political pursuits, via visits to the nation.
The main points of his first discuss with China as COO are usually not properly documented, nevertheless it did embrace assurances that Apple was dedicated to long-term improvement within the nation. This additionally consists of will increase in investments for analysis and social welfare.
For essentially the most half, this was a case of Khan making an attempt to maintain China blissful regardless of Apple’s seeming shift away from the nation for manufacturing. All due to elevated enlargement in India.
Whereas China is an enormous subject for Apple, one other one lies nearer to house. The Trump Administration has repeatedly expressed a necessity for Apple to convey manufacturing jobs to america.
As COO, this was one other subject that Khan has to handle, except for Tim Prepare dinner’s regular dealings with Trump instantly.
In response to the calls, Apple has made a number of bulletins about investments into america, enhancing its native manufacturing with lots of of billions of {dollars}.
COO, however in all probability not CEO
As COO, Khan has successfully turn out to be the heir-apparent for the function of CEO if one thing surprising had been to occur to Prepare dinner.
Nevertheless, regardless of the controlling place, it appears unlikely that Khan will really turn out to be CEO. He might turn out to be an interim CEO, as Prepare dinner did for Steve Jobs, however full-time is one other matter.
The primary downside is an absence of public presence, which different main executives on the workforce have earned over time. As a figurehead, Khan will earn this steadily, however it’s going to take years and lots of public appearances.
There’s additionally the subject of age, and being only a few years youthful than Prepare dinner means he will not be considered as a long-term CEO alternative. Particularly contemplating the tenures of Prepare dinner and Jobs on the helm.
Present opinion is that John Ternus might be the frontrunner for Apple’s long-term CEO succession plans.
Whereas Khan is not essentially going to turn out to be the CEO of Apple sometime, he’ll nonetheless have a hand in shaping the corporate for the longer term. Albeit not within the captain’s chair.