Apple on Tuesday announced the promotion of Avadis “Avie” Tevanian Jr., PhD to the position of chief software technology officer. Tevanian will now focus on setting company-wide software technology directions, according to Apple.
Tevanian joined Apple in 1997 as senior vice president of software engineering. Prior to his position at Apple, Tevanian was vice president of engineering at NeXT — the computer company that Apple CEO Steve Jobs founded between stints running Apple. Tevanian started his career at Carnegie Mellon University, where he was the principal designer and engineer of the Mach operating system which served as the basis for NEXTSTEP, leading ultimately to the development of Mac OS X.
Tevanian’s previous position of senior vice president of Software Engineering will be filled by another NeXT alumnus — Bertrand Serlet, who has been Apple’s vice president of Platform Technology.
Jobs called Tevanian’s appointment as chief software technology officer “a seamless handoff,” noting that with Panther “in great shape,” now is “a good time to let Avie return to a more hands-on technical role and to promote Bertrand to lead our entire OS software engineering team.”