Apple announced Thursday that Fred D. Anderson, the company’s executive vice president and Chief Financial Officer, will retire on June 1, 2004. Set to step into Anderson’s vacancy is Peter Oppenheimer, Apple senior vice president of Finance and corporate controller. Once he retires, Anderson will be appointed to Apple’s Board of Directors.
“Fred has been one of my closest partners at Apple, and has earned the reputation as one of the finest CFOs in the technology industry. We’re going to have a smooth handoff to Peter, who will be a great CFO for Apple, and we’ll continue to benefit from Fred’s contributions as a member of Apple’s Board,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Anderson indicated that Oppenheimer has been groomed for the past four years to take over his role as CFO. “Peter already has responsibility for almost all of Apple’s financial departments and has done an excellent job leading them,” he added.
Anderson has been with the company since March 1996. Before that, he was CFO for Automatic Data Processing (ADP). He also sits on the boards of eBay and E.piphany. Oppenheimer also came to Apple by way of ADP, where he was CFO of one of the company’s business units. He was hired by Apple a few months after Anderson started, in July 1996.