One of the heads of Apple’s design group, Evans Hankey, is to leave the company, via Bloomberg. The former VP Industrial Design officially led Apple’s design team alongside software design chief Alan Dye, following the departure of Jony Ive in 2019.
Bloomberg says Hankey told employees she will stay at the company for the next six months, before departing. Apple has not yet named a replacement for Hankey’s role.
One possible candidate to assume the leadership hole is Richard Howarth, who briefly had the role of industrial design VP from 2015-2017, at the same time as when Jony Ive was ‘promoted’ to Chief Design Officer.
Like much of Apple’s secretive design group, Hankey has kept a relatively low profile with few public appearances. However, her and her team were profiled by Wallpaper back in December 2021.
Top comment by Graham Jones
Hankey worked under Jony Ive and eventually became a design team leader, formally taking the top job of industrial design VP upon Ive’s departure in 2019.
In a statement, Apple thanked Evans for her contributions to the company and confirmed she plans to stay on for a period of transition.
“Apple’s design team brings together expert creatives from around the world and across many disciplines to imagine products that are undeniably Apple,” a spokesman said in a statement. “The senior design team has strong leaders with decades of experience. Evans plans to stay on as we work through the transition, and we’d like to thank her for her leadership and contributions.”
Hankey’s exit will undoubtedly reignite concerns about the ongoing importance of design at Apple. Indeed, Apple’s leadership page has not showcased a single SVP or VP of design since Ive left the company.
Many of Tim Cook’s critics have remarked that he has repeatedly put operations executives in charge of key decisions, thereby diminishing the contributions of the design group.
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