Apple said Tuesday that longtime marketing chief Phil Schiller will step down from his role and become an Apple fellow.

Schiller has worked at Apple's marketing department for over three decades and most recently, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, led efforts for Apple's first-ever virtual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple said in a statement. He will now become an Apple fellow where he will run the App Store and App Events.

"Phil has helped make Apple the company it is today and his contributions are broad, vast, and run deep," Apple's CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. "In this new role, he will continue to provide incredible thought partnership, and guidance that have defined his decades at Apple."

Apple also announced that one of Schiller's deputies, Greg Joswiak, who goes by the nickname "Joz," will replace him, taking Schiller's former title of senior vice president of worldwide marketing.

"Joz's many years of leadership in the Product Marketing organization make him perfectly suited to this new role and will ensure a seamless transition at a moment when the team is engaged in such important and exciting work," Cook said in the statement.

Schiller is the fourth Apple executive to leave the company's leadership team within the last couple of years with other departures, including head of design Jony Ive, public relations boss Steve Dowling and former retail boss Angela Ahrendts.

"I first started at Apple when I was 27, this year I turned 60 and it is time for some planned changes in my life," Schiller said in the statement. "I'll keep working here as long as they will have me, I bleed six colors, but I also want to make some time in the years ahead for my family, friends, and a few personal projects I care deeply about."

Apple's logo used to feature a rainbow of six colors and other longtime Apple employees have said they would "bleed six colors," if cut, according to Six Colors website.

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