Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue will be recognized for his leadership of the company’s entertainment and services business by being honored as “Entertainment Person of the Year” at the Cannes Lions festival next month, reports Variety.
In a statement, Lions CEO Simon Cook pointed to Apple’s singular role in influencing consumer behavior, thanks to the company’s trailblazing devices in making the decision to honor the Apple executive this year.
Cook said:
Eddy Cue has consistently pushed the boundaries of entertainment and storytelling, building platforms and experiences that have redefined how audiences engage with culture. Under his leadership, Apple has not only produced world-class content but has also shaped the future of entertainment through innovation, creativity and an unwavering commitment to quality. We’re delighted to honor Eddy as our 2026 Entertainment Person of the Year.
Cue will also deliver a keynote on the opening day of the festival, which runs from June 22 to June 26 in the south of France. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, whose film “F1: The Movie” was released by Apple last year, will speak alongside Cue.
As noted by Wikipedia, Cue currently oversees Apple’s numerous content stores and products including the iTunes Store, the Apple Books Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Pay, Maps, iAd, iCloud services, and Apple’s productivity and creativity apps.
Cue joined Apple in 1989 and was instrumental in helping create the Apple online store in 1997, the iTunes Store in 2003, and the App Store in 2008.
Cue also oversaw the debut and operation of the Apple TV streaming service, launched in November 2019 (as Apple TV+).
“We’ve always thought that art was a big piece of the DNA of who we are,” Cue told Variety in June 2025. “But we never expected to be creating movies or TV shows.” But as streaming platforms proliferated, “We saw that the world was changing, and it seemed like everybody was going after quantity. We thought there was an opening for us, if we really focused on high quality,” he said.