Financial Times names out Apple CEO Tim Cook ‘Person of the Year’
Apple CEO Tim Cook has been named Person of the Year by the Financial Times, after he came out as gay.
The tech boss came out in October, saying: “Let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.
“For years, I’ve been open with many people about my sexual orientation. Plenty of colleagues at Apple know I’m gay, and it doesn’t seem to make a difference in the way they treat me.
“If hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.”
He is currently the only openly gay CEO of a top 100 US company.
The Financial Times paid tribute to Mr Cook’s “brave exposition of his values”.
It added: “This was never more powerful than when he talked publicly for the first time about his sexuality.
“It was a rare glimpse into his closely guarded personal life that also put at risk Apple’s brand in less tolerant parts of the world.”
Despite picking up the FT’s honour, he missed out on TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year award this week – which was awarded to ‘the Ebola fighters’.
Vladmir Putin was named runner-up for the TIME award – which is notorious for its bizarre and sometimes abstract choices. In 2006, the winner was ‘You’.
