“Steve’s whole raison d’être just enriched and changed people’s lives. Then Tim’s added a whole other level, which is: Apple has gotten so big that it is our responsibility to leave it better than we found it.”
— Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s retail chief, on her respect for CEO Tim Cook. We haven’t heard much from the former CEO of Burberry since she was hired by Apple in 2013 and started working at the company last year, but she recently talked to Fortune, which just put Cook at No. 1 on its annual list of the World’s Greatest Leaders.
Ahrendts said she “did not expect to be moved by the man, and I left and I thought, ‘Ohhhhh! My life was perfect. Aaargh, why, why, why?'” She continued: “The first time I sat down with him, I walked away thinking wow, that’s a man of peace. I just absolutely loved his integrity, his values. Nothing anybody can write, say, or do is going to take him off of always doing the right thing. Not just for Apple, but for Apple’s people, for communities, for countries. The world needs more leaders like Tim.”
We and others have written about this before, but Fortune points out in its profile of Cook that among the big differences between him and late CEO Steve Jobs are that he embraces and encourages philanthropy, and gets publicly involved in social issues.
Photo: Then-Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts speaks at the National Retail Federation’s annual convention in New York on Jan. 18, 2012. Ahrendts is now the retail chief at Apple. (Mark Lennihan/Associated Press)
