Apple Inc. has tapped a highly-regarded senior executive who helped bring to market many of Apple's signature products to oversee its fledgling automobile project, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bob Mansfield had stepped back from a day-to-day role at the company a few years ago, after leading the hardware engineering development of products including the MacBook Air laptop computer, the iMac desktop computer, and the iPad tablet. Apple now has Mr. Mansfield running the company's secret autonomous, electric-vehicle initiative, code-named Project Titan, the people said.

Mr. Mansfield, who joined Apple in 1999 and was one of its top executives under former Chief Executive Steve Jobs, had been an adviser at the company since leaving Apple's executive team in 2013. At the time, Apple said Mr. Mansfield was going to remain at Apple to work on special projects and report to CEO Tim Cook. One of those projects—the Apple Watch—was introduced last year.

Until recently, Mr. Mansfield—who, along with design chief Jony Ive, was one of the few executives to appear in Apple's carefully-crafted product announcement videos—had all but retreated from the company aside from the occasional visit, these people said. Earlier this month, employees at Apple noticed in the company directory that all the senior managers on the car project were now reporting to Mr. Mansfield, they said.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment on personnel matters. Mr. Mansfield didn't respond to an email seeking comment.

Write to Daisuke Wakabayashi at Daisuke.Wakabayashi@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 25, 2016 11:15 ET (15:15 GMT)

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