Filling A Big Shoe

Timothy D. Cook is the current CEO of Apple. He took over the position in August 24, 2011 succeeding Steve Jobs who died from pancreatic cancer in October 5, 2011. Cook had been the acting CEO since January 2011 when Jobs began a medical leave.

Filling the shoes of Jobs is certainly a big shoe to fill. Cook though does not seem to want to be another Jobs and has been steering the company quite nicely. Some had feared that the company’s value would go down dramatically after Job’s death but that hasn’t happened.

Cooked joined Apple in March 1998 as SVP of Worldwide Operations and also served as EVP of Worldwide Sales and Operations. He was the COO until appointed as CEO.

What many people may not know about Cook is his joining Apple then could have been considered a career risk. Apple was then not producing the great products it has now. In fact many were thinking about its extinction.  Soon after he came on board things started to look better at Apple.

Cook was responsible for managing all sales and operations worldwide, including sales activities and service and support. Aside from this he was a leader of the Apple’s Macintosh division and in developing reseller/supplier relationship strategies. Less than a year after he joined Apple the company was reporting profits in fiscal year 1998. This is was a complete reversal of the previous fiscal year which produced a staggering net loss of $1 billion.

Cook was born in Alabama on November 1960 and obtained a B.S. degree in industrial engineering from Auburn University in 1982. He earned his MBA at Duke University Fuqua School of Business in 1988.  Cook worked at IBM and other technology companies before joining Apple.