Tim Cook

Timothy Donald Cook (born November 1, 1960) is an American business executive who has been the chief executive officer of Apple Inc. Cook had previously been the company's chief operating officer under its co-founder Steve Jobs.

Timothy Donald Cook was born on November 1, 1960, in Mobile, Alabama.

He was baptized in a Baptist church and grew up in nearby Robertsdale.

His father was a shipyard worker, and his mother worked at a pharmacy.

Cook graduated salutatorian from Robertsdale High School in Alabama in 1978.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in industrial engineering from Auburn University in 1982 and a Master of Business Administration degree from Duke University in 1988.

After graduating from Auburn University, Cook spent twelve years in IBM's personal computer business, ultimately serving as the director of North American fulfillment.

During this time, Cook also earned his MBA from Duke University, becoming a Fuqua Scholar in 1988.

Later, he was the chief operating officer of the computer reseller division of Intelligent Electronics.

In 1997, he became the vice president for corporate materials at Compaq, but took up his position at Apple six months later.

Cook joined Apple in March 1998 as a senior vice president for worldwide operations, and then as executive vice president for worldwide sales and operations.

In 1998, Steve Jobs asked Cook to join Apple.

In a commencement speech at Auburn University, Cook said he decided to join Apple after meeting Jobs:

"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 position was senior vice president for worldwide operations.

Cook closed factories and warehouses, and replaced them with contract manufacturers; this resulted in a reduction of the company's inventory from months to days.

Predicting its importance, his group had invested in long-term deals such as advance investment in flash memory since 2005.

This guaranteed a stable supply of what became the iPod Nano, then iPhone and iPad.

Competitors at Hewlett-Packard described their cancelled HP TouchPad tablet computer and later said that it was made from "cast-off, reject iPad parts".

Cook's actions were recognized for keeping costs under control, and combined with the rest of the company, generated huge profits.

In January 2007, Cook was promoted to lead operations and was chief executive in 2009, while Jobs, in failing health, was away on a leave of absence.

He was appointed chief executive on August 24, 2011 after Jobs, who was ill and died that October, resigned.

During his tenure as the chief executive, he has advocated for the political reform of international and domestic surveillance, cybersecurity, American manufacturing, and environmental preservation.

Since 2011 when he took over Apple, to 2020, Cook doubled the company's revenue and profit, and the company's market value increased from $348 billion to $1.9 trillion.

Cook is also on the boards of directors of Nike, Inc. and the National Football Foundation; he is a trustee of Duke University, his alma mater.

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.

After Jobs resigned as CEO and became chairman of the board, Cook was named the new chief executive officer of Apple Inc. on August 24, 2011.

Six weeks later, on October 5, 2011, Jobs died due to complications from 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 after the poorly received launch of Apple Maps, and became an advisor to Cook until he eventually departed from the company in 2013.

John Browett, who was senior VP of retail, was dismissed six months after he commenced at Apple, and given 100,000 shares worth US$60 million.

Forstall's duties were divided among four other Apple executives: design SVP Jony 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.

Cook made the executive changes after the third quarter of the fiscal year, when revenues and profits grew less than predicted.

Forstall's resignation was widely seen as a dismissal, allegedly caused by Cook's desire to reduce "rivalries between executives", and drew criticism, as Forstall had been seen as a possible successor to Cook.

In 2014, Cook became the first chief executive of a Fortune 500 company to publicly come out as gay.

On February 28, 2014, Cook made headlines when he challenged shareholders to "get out of the stock" if they did not share the company's views on sustainability and climate change.

Outside of Apple, Cook engages in philanthropy; in March 2015 he said he planned to donate his fortune to charity.