Tim Cook will step down as Apple chief executive in September, handing over to hardware boss John Ternus, and ending a 15-year tenure during which his operational expertise helped turn the iPhone maker into one of the world’s most valuable companies.
The 65-year-old, who succeeded Apple’s charismatic founder Steve Jobs in 2011, defied initial scepticism to turbocharge iPhone sales, build a services business and navigate an increasingly fractious relationship between the US and China, an important market and manufacturing hub for Apple.
Ternus, who in a quarter-century career at Apple has risen through the ranks to oversee the engineering of its best-selling products, including the iPhone, iPad and the Mac, will become the company’s only third CEO in the past 30 years.