14 DAY TRIAL // There’s any number of achievements that can be attributed to Tim Cook during his tenure as CEO of Apple, but for this year only, CNN says he deserves the top spot among the world’s best CEOs because the stock has skyrocketed.
Cook has been named CEO of the year by the network. The profile states, “Apple is the apple of Wall Street's eye again. And that's why Tim Cook is our choice for best CEO of 2014.”
Money, money, money
You didn’t expect money.cnn.com to talk about this year’s best CEO around without some emphasis on the profits this guy raked in, did you now? We didn’t think so either.
According to the Tim Cook profile, “The stock is up 40% this year and near an all-time high thanks to the launch of the latest iPhones and Apple Pay service as well as excitement about the Apple Watch due out in 2015. Cook has arguably the toughest CEO job in America. He's had to convince skeptics that Apple can still innovate after the death of Steve Jobs. He's proven all the naysayers wrong.”
Ask anyone else why Cook deserves the title of leader-of-the pack, and they’ll probably point to things like: holding together a massive organization in a position role comparable to that of a state president; his various endeavors for racial and gender equality (coming out as gay in a Bloomberg essay); refusing to cave in to investor pressure (Carl Icahn’s stock buyback), and many other things.
Products launched by Cook this year
Granted, the CNN blurb does mention Cook’s main role at Apple, and that he’s there to ensure innovation remains paramount at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California.
Case in point, Apple has been on a launch-spree this year, starting with the two major OS upgrades – OS X Yosemite and iOS 8, new Macintosh upgrades (including the first-ever Retina iMac), the highly-anticipated iPhone 6, and continuing with Apple Watch (rolling out early next year), a forged partnership with IBM to take on the Enterprise with an impressive suite of apps, and more.
It was also Cook who commissioned the costly Beats acquisition, and who personally donated some cash to advocacy groups in an effort to better the lives of a minority he himself is part of. Apple also raised in excess of $20 million (€16.41 million) for the (RED) foundation that fights AIDS.
