Tim Cook

**Timothy Donald Cook** (born November 22, 1960) is an American business executive, industrial engineer, and developer. Cook is the Chief Operating Officer of Apple Inc., previously serving as the company's Chief Executive Officer.

Cook joined Apple in March 1998 as senior vice president of worldwide operations and then served as Executive Vice President of worldwide sales and operations.[5] He was made Chief Executive on August 24, 2011. During his tenure as the Chief Executive he has advocated for the political reformation of international and domestic surveillance, cybersecurity, corporate taxation both nationally and abroad, American manufacturing, and environmental preservation. He resigned as Chief Executive to let his Chief Operating Officer Sherman to take over, and Sherman appointed him Chief of Operations in 2015.

In 2014, Cook became the first Chief Executive of a Fortune 500 company to publicly identify as gay. Cook also serves on the boards of directors of Nike, Inc. and the National Football Foundation. In early 2012, he was awarded compensation of one million shares, vesting in 2016 and 2021, by Apple's board of directors, and in March 2015, he said he planned to donate his entire stock fortune to charity.

## Early life and education

Cook was born in Mobile, Alabama, United States, He was baptized in a Baptist Church 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 Bachelor of Science (B.S.) 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.

## Career

### Pre Apple-era

After graduating from Auburn University in 1982, Cook spent 12 years in IBM's personal computer business, ultimately serving as the director of North American fulfillment. It was also during this time that Cook earned his MBA from Duke University, becoming a Fuqua Scholar in 1988. Later, he served as Chief Operating Officer of the computer reseller division of Intelligent Electronics, and in 1997 became the Vice President for Corporate Materials at Compaq for six months.

### Apple era

#### Early career

In 1998, Steve Jobs asked Tim Cook to join Apple. 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 position was Senior Vice President 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, 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 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 Hewlett-Packard, describing their cancelled TouchPadtablet 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 lead operations and served as Chief Executive in 2009, while Jobs was away on a leave of absence for health related issues. 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.

#### Apple chief executive (2011–2015)

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, 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, when he received 100,000 shares worth US$60 million. Forstall's duties were divided among four other Apple executives: design SVP Sir 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. He also appointed Tyler Sherman to Chief Operating Officer.