Apple recently announced that Tim Cook, the tech giant’s longtime CEO, will step down from the role on September 1, fifteen years after he succeeded late founder Steve Jobs. John Ternus, Apple’s current Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering will be replacing Cook.
The change coincides with a slight shuffle of Apple’s board of directors (the “Board”), taking effect on the same day as Ternus’ appointment to the CEO role. While Cook will remain Apple’s executive chairman, Arthur Levinson, who served as the non-executive chairman throughout Cook’s tenure as CEO, will become a lead independent director. Ternus will also join Apple’s Board.
According to TechCrunch, when Cook became Apple’s CEO in 2011, the nascent company could scarcely separate its identity from that of its enigmatic founder. Six weeks after Jobs passed away from pancreatic cancer, Cook, who had spent the preceding decade acting as back-up quarterback for Jobs when the founder’s health flared, assumed the lead
