Fortune speculates next Apple CEO, Jobs' successor

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With concerns about Steve Jobs' health surfacing again after his gaunt appearance at Apple's World WideDevelopers Conference earlier this month, Fortune has put together a list of 11 possible successors -- all of themfrom inside the company. While Apple has said Jobs made a completerecovery from a rare form of pancreatic cancer following surgery in2004, it hasnt stopped widespread speculation in the media, andmay be impacting Apples stock price. So, its not surprising thateven the old media financial press is asking who could fill Jobs'shoes. At the top of Fortunes list: Jobs right-hand man Tim Cook , Apple's Chief Operating Officer.

Cooks deep knowledge of Apple operations has won him the respectof the board of directors and the investment community, Fortune writes, but some are concerned he lacks the charisma needed to runApple. Cook has already been put to the test once, he ran the showwhile Jobs was recovering from surgery four years ago.

Next on Fortunes list are three more top Apple Lieutenants: Tony Fadell, RonJohnson and Phil Schiller. Fadell is senior Vice President of theiPod division. According his Apple biography, Fadell was the first member of the iPod engineering team when it wasformed in 1991. Before that, he held a variety of positions mostlydealing with Windows Mobile devices. Fortune says it was Fadell who came up with the idea of combining aNapster-like music store with a hard-drive mp3 player, andsuccessfully sold the idea to Apple.

Ron Johnson has an equally impressive track record in a different specialty:retailing. Already a sucessful executive at Target, Johnson joinedApple in 2000, and is the driving force behind Apple'shugely-profitable retail stores. The report notes Johnson getspoints for being a charismatic speaker.

Anyone who has watched a Steve Jobs Keynote speech over the pastfew years probably knows Phil Schiller's name. His Apple press bio credits Schiller with helping restoreApples reputation as an innovator by delivering breakthroughproducts such as the iMac, MacBook, Airport, Xserve, Mac OS X,Safari, Apple TV, iPod and iPhone. But if his Keynote performancesare any indication, Schiller looks more like Ed MacMahon thanJohnny Carson.

Next on the list, three more Apple executives with impressiveresumes: Scott Forstall, Jonathan Ive and Peter Oppenhiemer.Forstall left NeXT along with Jobs when he returned to Apple in1997 and sheparded the team that created Mac OS X Leopard, and iscurrently Senior Vice President of iPhone Software. Design guruJonathan Ive is credited as a major force behind Apples muchcelebrated and award-winning product design, but Fortune says he is an unlikely candidate to replace Jobs -- even thoughApple employees strongly support him -- because of his intenseshyness and desire for personal privacy. Ives is so private, says Fortune , that Apples HR Deparment doesnt even know his exact birthdate.Rounding out this group is Apples Chief Financial Officer PeterOppenhiemer the former Coopers & Lybrand executive who replaced CFOFred Anderson during the stock-backdating scandal.

The bottom four on Fortune's list of possible sucessors to Steve Jobs: Bertrand Serlet, SeniorVP of software engineering, Sina Tammaddon, VP of applications,Daniel Cooperman, Senior VP , General Counsel and Secretary and BobMansfield Senior VP of Mac hardware engineering. With Jobspowerful grip on everything Apple -- when the time does come forhim to step down -- his successor is going to have no easy timefilling Steve's shoes.

Filed under : Apple , industry
Other story tags : Steve Jobs , financial , stock , Fortune