When the boss of a company with a $4 trillion market value steps down, investors tend to sit up and take notice. That's why Apple (AAPL) shares dipped temporarily when the firm announced in April that after 15 years, chief executive Tim Cook was moving to a new role in September. His replacement, John Ternus, is a 25-year Apple veteran who now leads the company's hardware engineering division.
Ternus has big shoes to fill. Under Cook, Apple quadrupled its sales, its stock climbed more than a cumulative 2,300%, and its market value increased 10-fold. Cook presided over two product launches — the Apple Watch and AirPods — that now each pull in $10 billion in sales a year. And he successfully negotiated with Trump for tariff exemptions for Apple products.
