Tor Myhren has become Apple’s vice president of marketing and communications and will start in the California headquarters early in 2016.

Myrhen joined Grey in 2007. For the last two years, Myrhen has been worldwide chief creative officer of Grey Group and president of Grey New York.

During the six years in which Myrhen has led grey New York, its size has tripled to more than 1,000 staff and has been Adweek’s global agency of the year twice – 2013 and 2015.

Grey Group in 18 countries won 113 Lions at Cannes this year – 21 Gold, 36 Silver and 48 Bronze This tripled the Lions the network won in 2014 and establishes an overall agency record.

Myrhen was named in Fortune’s 40 under 40 list, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business list and AdAge’s 2010 Creativity 50.

“Apple has had such a positive influence on my life, and has helped shape and inspire my creativity more than any other product on the planet,” Myhren said in a statement. “I am humbled to be joining Tim [Cook] and the team.”

“My eight years at Grey aren’t just the best years of my career, they’ve been the best years of my life. I have treasured every single minute of working side by side with my mentor and friend [Grey Global chief executive officer] Jim Heekin. There are no words to express how proud I am of what we built together.”

Grey has stated that it won’t immediately create a new worldwide chief creative officer. Andreas Dahlqvist, who joined from McCann at the beginning of 2015 began, is the current creative head of Grey NY.

This is the memo that Grey staff received:

“I wanted to share some news with you. Tor Myhren who has been with Grey for the past eight years, first as Chief Creative Officer and later President of Grey New York and, for the past two years, as Worldwide Chief Creative Officer, will be leaving at the end of the year.

Tor will be joining Apple Inc. and moving to California with his growing family, a lifestyle change they have been contemplating for some time.

After a spectacular run at Grey, Tor wants to try his hand on the client side for this iconic tech company that has changed our culture and how we communicate.

As the head of the Grey Global Creative Council, Tor has made a monumental contribution to our success, enhancing our creative product, talent and profile around the world. Today, we have a deep bench of accomplished creative leaders in place across the world to fuel our continued momentum.

Tor takes with him our gratitude and warmest wishes for continued success as he opens this new chapter in his career. Please give him your congratulations and thanks.”