CNET:

Apple is changing leaders at Beats, the premium headphone and earphone maker it acquired in 2014 for $3 billion. Longtime president Luke Wood is exiting and veteran Apple exec Oliver Schusser, who heads up Apple Music and International Content, is taking over at the end of this month.

Apple hasn’t publicly announced the leadership change, but Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, told Apple employees about the transition via email in recent weeks. A Beats spokesperson confirmed to CNET that Schusser will lead Beats after Wood’s departure on April 30. Schusser will also continue to run Apple Music and International Content, reporting to Cue. The consolidation is a homecoming of sorts for Apple Music, which was built on the backbone of the earlier Beats Music streaming service.

The move has been in the works for a while, Cue said in his note to employees. Cue wrote that he was sensitive to making a management change in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, remarking that “the timing of the announcement isn’t ideal.”

Changing leadership at any time isn’t always easy but it must be doubly so in the midst of a worldwide pandemic.