The departure of Steve Jobs from the role of CEO leaves Apple Inc. with a deep bench of executives who have been with the company for more than a dozen years _ an unusual lineup for a company in the fast-moving technology world.
Here’s a who’s who of the top names in Apple:
_ Tim Cook, the new CEO, was chief operating officer and has filled in for Jobs during his medical leaves. He joined Apple Inc. in 1998 as senior vice president of worldwide operations and has been credited with tuning Apple’s manufacturing process to solve chronic product delays and supply problems. As the guy who kept things humming in the background, Cook hasn’t participated much in product launches.
Before Apple, Cook worked in supply chain management at Compaq Computer, now part of Hewlett-Packard Co., and IBM Corp. He has an MBA from Duke University.
_ Peter Oppenheimer is Apple’s chief financial officer, a position that in many companies is a stepping stone to the CEO position. But at Apple, financials seem to take a back seat to technology and design. Oppenheimer wasn’t mentioned in the speculation over who would take over as CEO after Jobs, before it became clear that Cook was the crown prince. Oppenheimer started at Apple in 1996. He has an MBA from the University of Santa Clara.
_ Philip Schiller is the head of product marketing and frequently participates in Apple’s trademark product launch events. Yet he’s worked in the shadow of Jobs, who’s been a highly visible front man for the company and deeply involved in the company’s marketing and presentation _ Jobs’ even been known to answer e-mails from customers. Schiller’s career has followed a similar trajectory to Jobs: He started worked there in the 80s, left to work at other companies, then returned in 1997 when Jobs did. He graduated from Boston College with a major in biology.
_ Jonathan Ive has led Apple’s industrial design team, responsible for the look and feel of the hardware, since 1996. That means he predates Jobs’ return to the company in 1997. Ive has guided the design of iconic products such as the original iMac, the iPod and the iPhone. He’s the winner of several design awards. In a 2007 interview with the Design Museum in Britain, he says Apple’s design process is characterized by “fanatical care beyond the obvious stuff: the obsessive attention to details that are often overlooked, like cables and power adaptors.”
_ Scott Forstall heads Apple’s development of software for the iPhone and iPad and helps demonstrate their features at launch events. He worked with Jobs at Next, the company Jobs founded after leaving Apple in the 1980s, and joined Apple when it bought Next in 1997. Forstall is one of the architects of the current Mac operating system, OS X. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University.
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