With a press release, Apple has announced that Arthur D. Levinson is the company’s new non-executive Chairman of the Board. Levinson has been a co-lead director since 2005; Apple also announced Bob Iger, President and CEO of Walt Disney, is joining the board.

Levinson is Genentech’s current Chairman and has served as CEO from 1995 to 2009. Named by BusinessWeek “one of the best managers” in 2004 and 2005, Levinson was a close friend to Steve Jobs and also served as a director of Google until he resigned from the board in 2009. Changes in Apple’s board have already appeared on the company’s Leadership page. Levinson fills the role of Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs, who resigned as CEO in late August, was named Chairman of the Board, and passed away in early October.

As for Iger, Disney’s corporate profile reports:

As President and CEO, Mr. Iger is the steward of the world’s largest media company and some of the most respected and beloved brands around the globe. His strategic vision for The Walt Disney Company focuses on three fundamental aspects: generating the best creative content possible; fostering innovation and utilizing the latest technology; and expanding into new markets around the world. Mr. Iger has built on Disney’s rich history of unforgettable storytelling, with the acquisition of Pixar (2006) and Marvel (2009), two of the entertainment industry’s greatest storytellers. Always one to embrace new technology, Mr. Iger has made Disney an industry leader at the forefront of offering its creative content across new and multiple platforms.

Readers of the official Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson may be already familiar with Bob Iger, who is often quoted in Steve Jobs’ negotiations between Pixar and Disney.

Press release after the break. [image via] (more…)

With a press release that just went out, Steve Jobs has announced he’s stepping down as CEO of Apple. Former COO Tim Cook will take the role of new CEO. Steve Jobs will stay involved as Chairman of the Board, and Tim Cook will obviously join the Board, too, effective immediately. In a letter to the Board and the Apple community, Steve Jobs explains he’s no longer capable of meeting his duties and expectations as Apple CEO, strongly recommending the Board to name Tim Cook as new CEO. Jobs also states “Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it”.

On January 17, Apple’s Board granted Steve Jobs a medical leave of absence, and the former CEO said he would remain involved with major strategic decisions, with Tim Cook filling in for day-to-day operations at Apple. Since then, Steve Jobs made two appearances at a media event in March and the WWDC ’11 keynote to announce the iPad 2, iOS 5 and new iCloud features. Speculation has surrounded Steve Jobs’ health conditions since January, although the company preferred to keep such conditions private and out of the community and press daily rumors.

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. He left the company in 1985, only to return from NeXT (another company he started) to Apple in 1997 and ignite the digital revolution by laying the groundwork of modern Mac OS X, iTunes and the iLife suite, and later the iPhone in 2007, and the iPad in 2010. From Apple’s official bio of the Steve Jobs (which hasn’t been updated to reflect the new Chairman role yet):

Steve Jobs is the CEO of Apple, which he co-founded in 1976. Apple is leading the consumer technology world with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, its family of iPod media players and iTunes media store, and its Mac computers and iLife and iWork application suites. Apple recently introduced the iPad, a breakthrough Internet and digital media device, plus the iBookstore, alongside iTunes and the App Store.

Steve also co-founded and was the CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, which created some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time including Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Ratatouille. Pixar merged with The Walt Disney Company in 2006 and Steve now serves on Disney’s board of directors.

Steve grew up in the apricot orchards which later became known as Silicon Valley, and still lives there with his family.

Tim Cook, former COO of Apple, was responsible for the company’s worldwide sales and operations, reporting directly to Steve Jobs and managing Apple’s supply chain overseas. He’s regarded as the man who made possible building and shipping millions of iOS devices in four years thanks to exclusive supplier agreements and deals, including pre-payments to get stable access to important components such as the LCD displays used in Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Before joining Apple, Cook was vice president of Corporate Materials for Compaq and was responsible for procuring and managing all of Compaq’s product inventory. Previous to his work at Compaq, Cook was the chief operating officer of the Reseller Division at Intelligent Electronics.

Wikipedia provides a brief timeline of Cook’s roles at Apple:

• He initially served as Senior Vice President for Worldwide Operations
• In January 2007, Cook was promoted to COO.
• Cook served as Apple CEO for two months in 2004, when Steve Jobs was recovering from pancreatic cancer surgery. Cook also serves on the Board of directors of Nike.
• In 2009 Cook again served as Apple CEO for several months while Steve Jobs took a leave of absence for a liver transplant.
• In January 2011, Apple’s Board of Directors approved a third medical leave of absence, requested by Steve Jobs. During that time, Tim Cook was responsible for most of Apple’s day-to-day operations while CEO Steve Jobs made most major decisions.

Steve Jobs is widely regarded as the “visionary genius” behind many of Apple’s best inventions and innovations such as the refined graphical user interface, the Mac’s attention to detail and beautiful typography, and iOS’ focus on multitouch and natural user experience. To get an idea of the man behind the company, check out this collection of Steve Jobs quotes we collected two years ago.

Below, you’ll find the press releases from Apple, Steve Jobs’ commencement address at Stanford University in 2005, and the video of the official “iCEO” announcement in 2000. As for our thoughts on Apple without Steve Jobs, we’ll take our time to elaborate on today’s (huge) news for the company, but overall, this article from January 2011 still holds true: During Steve’s Absence, Apple Will Be Just Fine. (more…)

At Apple’s shareholders meeting today in the company’s Town Hall auditorium, a proposal to reveal Apple’s succession plan was rejected. For many months now, speculation has arisen that Apple should reveal its succession plans for Steve Jobs’ retirement (which, you know, is going to happen eventually) — but the company always refused to give out details, that are likely already in place, fearing repercussions in the management sphere with names of executives to succeed Jobs going public.

Apple COO Tim Cook took the stage today to introduce the board of directors, whose seven members — including Jobs — were reelected.

The most controversial shareholder proposal — that Apple adopt a detailed succession plan — was introduced about 20 minutes later. According to the representative of the Central Laborers’ Pension Fund who introduced it, Proposal No. 5 did not require the company to name names, she said, so management’s fears about the proposal were unfounded.

Apple has a succession plan for when Steve Jobs will leave, but they don’t want anyone to know just yet.

Today Apple appointed a new member of the Board of Directors: Ron Sugar, former CEO of Northrop Grumman Corp. “Dr. Sugar will serve as the Chair of the Audit and Finance Committee”, the press release reports. He takes the spot left by Jerry York, who passed away in March.

Steve Jobs is very happy about the decisions, as “Ron is an engineer at heart, who then became a very successful business leader” that has been involved in the development “of some very sophisticated technology.” Being Apple an engineering-driven company, it’s no surprise Ron Sugar is a new member of the Board of Directors. Press release follows below. (more…)