American businessman Tim Cook was BOTD in 1960. Born in Mobile, Alabama to a working-class family, he studied industrial engineering at Auburn University and business administration at Duke University. In 1982, he joined IBM, later working for Intelligent Electronics and Compaq. In 1998, he was hired by Apple CEO Steve Jobs as senior Vice President for world operations. He doubled the company’s revenue by moving product manufacturing to outside contractors and reducing inventory turnover time, contributing to Apple’s domination of the tech market. He became chief operating officer in 2005, taking over the chief executive position after Jobs’ death in 2011. In 2014, he became the first chief executive of a Fortune 500 company to publicly come out as gay. He has been widely criticised for his trading relationship with the Chinese government, which pro-democracy protesters argue has encouraged Chinese state censorship and stifled rights of public protest. His relationship status is unknown.