In the interim, who's leading Apple?

Tim Cook

Steve Jobs' medical leave puts the spotlight back on the other members of Apple's executive ranks, in particular Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, financial chief Peter Oppenheimer, and marketing chief Phil Schiller.

Tim Cook
A one-time Compaq executive, Cook has run much of Apple's operations for some time. He also was the man tapped by the board when Jobs previously went on leave for cancer treatment.

Much of Cook's career has been spent handling manufacturing and procurement duties, although he took over responsibility for sales at Apple, before adding the COO title in 2005. In addition to his work at Compaq, Cook also spent 12 years at IBM, where he ran manufacturing and operations for a large chunk of Big Blue's PC business.

Peter Oppenheimer
A longtime Apple finance guy, Oppenheimer started with Apple in 1996 serving as controller for the Americas and, eventually, as the company's overall controller, before taking over as chief financial officer upon the retirement of Fred Anderson.

Peter Oppenheimer

Prior to Apple, Oppenheimer was a divisional CFO at Automatic Data Processing (ADP).

Phil Schiller
Schiller has long served as Jobs' right-hand man when it comes to pitching Apple products to the public. A frequent guest in Jobs' keynote speeches, Schiller has also given some solo talks, most recently at this year's Macworld.

An avid sports fan, he coached an Apple hockey team that took on a team from Sun Microsystems, among other rivals. In addition to his work at Apple, Schiller served as a VP of product marketing for Macromedia.

While these three will be most visible during Jobs absence, others also play key roles. Design guru Jonathan Ive is known as Apple's strongest creative voice outside of Jobs, while former Target executive Ron Johnson is responsible for Apple's booming network of retail stores.

On the software front, chief software architect, Avie Tevanian, is no longer there, but several other software execs remain, including software engineering head Bertrand Serlet and applications chief, Sina Tamaddon.

Phil Schiller delivered the keynote address at Macworld 2009.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

[Mr. Dee]

I can't believe you left out Bertrand Serlet and Scott Forstall. Those two guys are key figures in the development of OS X and iPhone OS.

She didn't leave out Bertrand Serlet - at least in the current version.

I am also a bit surprised that she left out Scott Forstall.

[Perry_Clease]

I have seen several reports that for the time being Tim Cook is taking Steve's place.

[AppleSuxLeo]

Schiller and Oppenheimer look like Pillsbury dough-boys....Eeew.

[seven7dust]

n e body is better than Steve balmer {uncle fester}
So I think Apple's better of than you know who ?

[AppleSuxLeo]

Cook looks like one of the "Heaven`s Gate" loonies.

[AppleSuxLeo]

Jon Rubinstein really is the New Steve Jobs...but he works for Palm now.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/1/9/1231490374087/The-new-Palm-Pre-smartpho-002.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jan/09/palm-pre-launch-ces-rubenstein&usg=__oBOTzwBhMlVVCFJ2t9o3EjbNLLg=&h=276&w=460&sz=29&hl=en&start=25&um=1&tbnid=veZWwYqQolfC8M:&tbnh=77&tbnw=128&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpalm%2Bpre%26start%3D18%26ndsp%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

[ppgreat]

Amazing how a quick article on the depth of Apple's bench turns into some incomprehensible thread.

Not really "Amazing", just seems par for the course. In fact, I'm surprised it hasn't turned either political or racist yet!

[AppleSuxLeo]

They could get Billy Mays to sell their overpriced crap ;)

[AppleSuxLeo]

New CEO Apple ?
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/01/65401-004-04E85CD5.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-art/701760/55594/Marshall-Applewhite&usg=__89iz3sLTcWetQ24O-_07n-yLLDk=&h=300&w=396&sz=31&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=o2j3lCWtyDK4YM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3DMarshall%2BApplewhite%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DX