TIM COOK

Timothy Donald Cook, popularly known as Tim Cook is an American business executive, and is the CEO of Apple Inc. Cook joined Apple in March 1998 as Senior Vice President (SVP) of Worldwide Operations—he also served as Executive Vice President (EVP) of Worldwide Sales and Operations—and was Chief Operating Officer (COO) until he was named the CEO of Apple on August 24, 2011, when he succeeded Steve Jobs. (Cook had previously served as acting CEO of Apple after Jobs began medical leave in January 2011.) In early 2012, he was awarded compensation of one million shares, vesting in 2016 and 2021, by Apple’s Board of Directors.
Cook also serves on the board of directors of Nike, Inc. and the National Football Foundation.

HIS EARLY LIFE

Tim Cook was born in Mobile, Alabama, United States on the 1st of November, 1960, and grew up in nearby Robertsdale. His father, Donald, was a shipyard worker, and his mother, Geraldine, worked at a pharmacy.
Cook graduated from Robertsdale High School. He earned a B.S. degree in industrial engineering from Auburn University in 1982, and his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in 1988.

HIS CAREER

Before Apple

After graduating from Auburn University, Cook spent 12 years in IBM’s personal computer business, ultimately serving as the director of North American Fulfillment. Later, he served as COO of the computer reseller division of Intelligent Electronics, and was Vice President for Corporate Materials at Compaq for six months.

Apple

Tim Cook was asked to join Apple by Jobs in 1998. In a commencement speech at Auburn University, Cook said he decided to join Apple after meeting Jobs for the first time:

Any purely rational consideration of cost and benefits lined up in Compaq’s favor, and the people who knew me best advised me to stay at Compaq… On that day in early 1998 I listened to my intuition, not the left side of my brain or for that matter even the people who knew me best… no more than five minutes into my initial interview with Steve, I wanted to throw caution and logic to the wind and join Apple. My intuition already knew that joining Apple was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work for the creative genius, and to be on the executive team that could resurrect a great American company.

His first assignment was SVP for Worldwide Operations. In relation to the role, Cook was quoted as saying:

You kind of want to manage it like you’re in the dairy business. If it gets past its freshness date, you have a problem.

Cook closed factories and warehouses, replacing them with contract manufacturers, causing a reduction in the company’s inventory, from months to days. Predicting its importance, his group invested in long-term deals such as advance investment in flash memory from 2005 onwards, guaranteeing stable supply of what became a key iPod nano, then iPhone and iPad component. Competitors at HP, describing their cancelled TouchPad tablet computer, later said that it was made from “cast-off reject iPad parts.” Cook’s actions were credited with keeping costs under control and, combined with the company’s design and marketing savvy, generated huge profits.

In January 2007, Cook was promoted to the position of COO and served as CEO in 2009, while Jobs was away on a leave of absence to manage his health. In January 2011, Apple’s Board of Directors approved a third medical leave of absence requested by Jobs. During that time, Cook was responsible for most of Apple’s day-to-day operations, while Jobs made most major decisions.

His role as CEO

After Jobs resigned as CEO and became chairman of the board, Cook was named CEO of Apple Inc. on August 24, 2011. Six weeks later, on October 5, 2011, Jobs died because of complications from a relapse of his previously treated islet-cell neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer. Forbes contributor Robin Ferracone wrote in September 2011: Jobs and Cook proceeded to forge a strong partnership, and rescued the company from its death spiral, which took it from $11 billion in revenue in 1995 down to less than $6 billion in 1998 … Under their leadership, the company went from its nadir to a remarkable $100 billion today. In April 2012, Time included Cook on its annual “100 Most Influential People in the World” list.

On October 29, 2012, Cook made major changes to the company’s executive team, Scott Forstall resigned as senior vice president of iOS, and became an advisor to Cook until he eventually departed from the company in 2013.

John Browett, who was SVP of retail, was dismissed six months after he commenced at Apple, when he received 100,000 shares worth US$60 million. Forstall’s duties were divided among four other Apple executives: design SVP Jonathan Ive assumed leadership of Apple’s Human Interface team; Craig Federighi became the new head of iOS software engineering; services chief Eddy Cue became responsible for Maps and Siri; and Bob Mansfield, previously SVP of hardware engineering, became the head of a new technology group.

Tim Cook’s executive changes occurred after the third quarter of the fiscal year (Q3), when revenues and profits grew less than predicted. One commentator said that Forstall was forced to step down, as Cook “decided to lance the boil as internal politics and dissent reached a key pitch”. Since becoming CEO, Cook focused upon building a harmonious culture that meant “weeding out people with disagreeable personalities—people Jobs tolerated and even held close, like Forstall”; although, another journalist said that “Apple’s ability to innovate came from tension and disagreement.”

Alongside Google vice-president Vint Cerf and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Cook attended a closed-door summit held by President Obama on August 8, 2013, in regard to government surveillance and the Internet in the wake of the Edward Snowden NSA incident.

On February 28, 2014, Cook made headlines when he challenged shareholders to “get out of the stock” if they didn’t share the company’s views on sustainability and climate change.

HIS PERSONAL LIFE

Tim Cook is a fitness enthusiast and enjoys hiking, cycling, and going to the gym. Cook is known for being mostly solitary. He uses an off-campus fitness center for privacy, and very little is publicly known of his personal life: he explained in October 2014 that he has sought to achieve a “basic level of privacy”. He was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1996, an incident he said made him “see the world in a different way”. He has since taken part in charity fundraising such as cycle races to raise money for the disease. Tim Cook later told an Auburn alumni magazine that his symptoms came from “lugging a lot of incredibly heavy luggage around”.In 2009, Cook offered a portion of his liver to Jobs, since both share a rare blood type. Jobs responded by yelling,

I’ll never let you do that. I’ll never do that.

While delivering the 2010 commencement speech at Auburn University, Cook emphasized the importance of intuition during significant decision-making processes in his life, and further explained that preparation and hard work are also necessary to execute upon intuition.

While it had been reported in early 2011 that Tim Cook was gay, he chose to keep his personal life private. He did publicly support the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. In October 2014, the Alabama Academy of Honor inducted Tim Cook, who spoke about his home state’s record of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. The Academy of Honor is the highest honor Alabama gives its citizens.

On October 30, 2014, Tim Cook came out as gay in an editorial for Bloomberg Businessweek, stating

I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.

Cook also explained that he has been open about his sexuality “for years” and, while many people at Apple were aware of his sexual orientation, he sought to focus on Apple’s products and customers rather than his personal life. He ended the article by saying,

We pave the sunlit path toward justice together, brick by brick. This is my brick.

As a result, Tim Cook also became the first openly gay CEO on the Fortune 500 list. Tim Cook’s declaration has not changed the perceptions of the investors and customers.

HIS LEADERSHIP STYLE

As Apple Inc. CEO, Tim Cook regularly begins sending emails at 4:30 a.m. and previously held Sunday-night staff meetings by telephone to prepare for the next week. Cook shared the keys to his leadership at Apple in May 2013: people, strategy, and execution; he explained, “If you get those three right the world is a great place.” Under Cook’s leadership, Apple has increased its donations to charity, and in 2013, he hired Lisa Jackson, formerly the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, to assist Apple with the development of its renewable energy activities.

HIS FORTUNE

According to Fortune, Cook has Apple stock worth about $120 million and options with a value of $665 million. In March 2015, he said he planned to donate his entire fortune to charity.

In the book ‘Becoming Steve Jobs‘, co-authored by Brent Schlender and Fast Company executive editor Rick Tetzelli it was stated that Tim Cook offered a part his liver to save Steve Jobs’ life.

After discovering that he shared the same blood group, Cook went through a set of tests to check whether a part of his liver can be given which ended positively. When Cook met Jobs to share the good news he was furious about it and rejected him even though he was in need of a donor. These were lines from the book on what he said,

He cut me off at the legs, almost before the words were out of my mouth, ‘No’,  he said. I’ll never let you do that. I’ll never do that. Somebody that’s selfish, doesn’t reply like that. I mean, here’s a guy, he’s dying, he’s very close to death because of his liver issue, and here’s someone healthy offering a way out. I said, ‘Steve, I’m perfectly healthy, I’ve been checked out. Here’s the medical report. I can do this and I’m not putting myself at risk, I’ll be fine.’ And he doesn’t think about it. It was not, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ It was not, ‘I’ll think about it.’ It was not, ‘Oh, the condition I’m in . . .’ It was, ‘No, I’m not doing that!’ He kind of popped up in bed and said that. And this was during a time when things were just terrible. Steve only yelled at me four or five times during the 13 years I knew him, and this was one of them.

Tim Cook is a loving man and filled with compassion, he was and is theright choice for the  CEO position at Apple Inc. A man to look up to.

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