Good morning. The new year means a new finance chief for Apple Inc.
Kevan Parekh transitioned from VP of financial planning and analysis into the role of SVP and CFO on Jan. 1. The tech giant, which previously announced that its longtime CFO Luca Maestri would take on a new role, released a Form 8-K on Friday, making the transition official.
Parekh joined the company in 2013. His other former positions at Apple include VP of finance for sales, marketing, and retail. Before joining Apple, he held various senior leadership roles at Thomson Reuters and General Motors. As CFO of Apple, Parekh’s annual salary was increased to $1 million.
Meanwhile, Maestri is now the VP of corporate services, which includes information systems and technology, information security, and real estate and development. He reports to Apple CEO Tim Cook, according to the company. Maestri was previously the CFO at Apple for more than 10 years.
I asked analysts what they expect from the new finance chief.
“These are big shoes to fill in Cupertino, but we see the same CFO playbook,” Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities told me. Parekh is an Apple veteran, and he understands the culture and process that Maestri built, Ives said. “We see no speed bumps ahead in this transition,” he said.
William Kerwin, an equity analyst for Morningstar, had a similar sentiment. “We think Parekh will continue Maestri’s playbook and this should be good news for Apple shareholders,” Kerwin said.
Maestri oversaw a period of tremendous margin expansion for Apple, along with rising leverage towards the firm’s goal of being net cash neutral longer-term, he said. Morningstar expects both of these trends to continue under Parekh and predicts continuity in Apple’s strategy in the transition.
Strategy is certainly vital to Apple, No. 3 on the Fortune 500 list. It’s on track to become the first company with a market cap exceeding $4 trillion, Fortune reported. Apple’s stock growth has been fueled by optimism around AI advancements in iPhones and other devices. Morningstar expects the AI strategy to have a greater impact on device sales in late 2025 into 2026, given it’s been a protracted rollout and "the most appealing features of Apple Intelligence, in our view, have yet to be released," Kerwin said.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
