Tim Cook selected as Financial Times' Person of the Year
Apple CEO Tim Cook has been selected as Financial Time's Person of the Year for his role expanding Apple's collaboration with other companies and its support of social issues. On the business front, 2014 saw Apple partnering with IBM to create enterprise solutions for corporations while the US$3 billion purchase of Beats Electronics brought Apple into both the headphones and streaming music markets.
Cook explained in an interview with CNBC back in July why the collaboration with IBM was so important to the company.
But the reality is, that the penetration of these businesses and in commercial in general for mobility is still low. So where we have very good market share the penetration suggests there's a huge opportunity here. And I think if we can bring the kind of transformation we've arguably brought to consumers to enterprise, I think there's a huge opportunity here.
And we knew that we couldn't do that alone. We knew that we needed to have a partner that deeply understood all the different industry verticals that had scale, that had a lot of dirt under their fingernails, so to speak, from really understanding each of these verticals. And we found a kindred spirit in IBM. And I am so happy we did.
With the newly launched iPhone 6 and 6 Plus launching to record-breaking sales numbers, the successful launch of Apple Pay, and excitement building for the Apple Watch, 2015 is shaping up to be another good year for the company. Apple Pay worked so well upon release that competitor CurrentC started forcing some of the businesses it worked with to quickly retract their support for Apple Pay.
These bets paid off in November when Apple's market valuation hit a record $700 billion.
On the social front, Cook led the company to embrace equality and diversity both within and in society. 2014 saw Cook finally come out publicly as gay, in hopes that his openness might be inspiring to someone dealing with their own sexual identity. In October, Cook told Bloomberg Business Week:
If hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it's worth the trade-off with my own privacy.
In addition Cook added three women to the company's executive team and committed to improving diversity within the company. Tim Cook was also nominated for Time's Person of the Year, but lost to the Ebola fighters.
You can read Financial Times article here. It is currently behind a paywall, but is viewable with a free login account.
