Softpedia >News >Apple
Softpedia Homepage   

Bill Campbell, Long-Time Apple Board Member, Retires, Gets Replaced by Sue Wagner

Tim Cook wants some new blood in the Board of Directors

Jul 17, 2014 22:04 GMT  ·  By
Bill Campbell and Sue Wagner
   Bill Campbell and Sue Wagner
Apple has just announced that the longest standing Board of Directors' member, Bill Campbell, is stepping down. His place is taken by a financial specialist, Sue Wagner. 
 
Sue Wagner is the founding partner and director of BlackRock. According to a press release sent by Apple, she has been in that company since 1988 and helped it become one of the world's most successful asset-management companies. She is part of other boards like BlackRock, DSP BlackRock, Swiss Re, Wellesley College and Hackley School.
 
Tim Cook talks about Wagner's financial experience. “Sue is a pioneer in the financial industry and we are excited to welcome her to Apple’s board of directors. We believe her strong experience, especially in M&A and building a global business across both developed and emerging markets, will be extremely valuable as Apple continues to grow around the world.”
 
On the other hand, Bill Campbell, the longest serving board member, is leaving the company today. 
 
“When Bill joined Apple’s board, the company was on the brink of collapse. He not only helped Apple survive, but he’s led us to a level of success that was simply unimaginable back in 1997,” says Tim Cook. 
 
Campbell sat down with Fortune Magazine's Adam Lashinsky and talked about his time serving Apple, from the moment Steve Jobs invited him to join the board. 
 
That was back in 1997, right after Steve Jobs came back to Apple. Campbell tells the story of a Jobs that used to come by his house and simply wander into his backyard. “He came by one day, and we sat on a bench by the pool,” Campbell says, “and he said, ‘I’d like you to join the Apple board.’ The only time I’ve had a rush like that was when I was asked to be a trustee of Columbia University. I said, without hesitation, ‘For sure.’”
 
Campbell will be soon 74, and although he leaves Apple, he will stay with Intuit as the chairman of the board. 
 
According to the Fortune story, Campbell learned to be a coach for technology industry's leaders by doing that at Apple. "“John Doerr asked me if I would help out at Amazon,” he says. Campbell helped convince a young Jeff Bezos to continue as Amazon’s CEO, rather than becoming executive chairman. He later coached Eric Schmidt of Google and Evan Williams of Twitter. 
 
In his career, Campbell had to struggle with Steve Jobs' perception that he is helping Google more than Apple. “Steve would say, ‘If you’re helping them you’re hurting me.’ He would yell at me,” recalls Campbell, whose normal banter typically needs to be sanitized for most publications. “ I’d say, ‘I can’t do HTML, come on. I’m just coaching them on how to run their company better.’”