William Campbell (business executive)

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Bill Campbell
Born William Vincent Campbell Jr.
(1940-08-31)August 31, 1940
Homestead, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Residence Palo Alto, California[1]
Alma mater Columbia University
Occupation Chairman, Intuit

William Vincent "Bill" Campbell Jr. (August 31, 1940 – April 18, 2016) was an American businessman and chairman of the board of trustees of Columbia University and chairman of the board of Intuit Inc. He was VP of Marketing and board director for Apple Inc. and CEO for Claris, Intuit, and GO Corporation.[2]

Early life and career

Son of a local school official, Campbell was born and raised in Homestead, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. He attended Columbia University where he played football under coach Buff Donelli from 1959 to 1961.[3] In his senior year, he was named to the All-Ivy Team. He graduated in 1962 with a bachelor's degree in economics. In 1964, he obtained a master's degree in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.[4] He was head coach of Columbia's football team, the Columbia Lions from 1974 to 1979. Prior to this he was an assistant at Boston College for six years. He met his first wife, the former Roberta Spagnola, while she was the assistant dean in charge of Columbia's undergraduate dormitories.

He joined J. Walter Thompson, the advertising agency, and then Kodak, where he rose to run Kodak's European film business. He was hired by John Sculley, became Apple's VP of Marketing, and then ran Apple's Claris software division. When Sculley refused to spin Claris off into an independent company, Campbell and much of the Claris leadership left. Since 1997, when Steve Jobs returned to Apple, Campbell had served as a corporate director on Apple's board of directors.

Campbell became CEO of GO Corporation, a startup pioneering a tablet computer operating system. After successfully selling GO Eo to AT&T Corporation in 1993, Campbell was CEO of Intuit from 1994 to 1998. Campbell announced that he would be retiring as the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Intuit starting January 2016.[5]

Campbell was an adviser to a number of technology companies, and was elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Columbia in 2005.

Business Coaching

Jeff Bezos received six weeks of coaching from Bill Campbell in the late nineties to help him improve his performance as Amazon CEO, reputedly saving him from being replaced in favor of an experienced executive by his directors. Campbell refused to accept any payment.[6]

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, in her Facebook post marking the announcement of his death, said she had been "privileged to have him as my coach for many years" while at Google. [7]

Eric Schmidt received coaching from Campbell when he first became CEO of Google, and described Campbell's contribution as "literally not possible to overstate. He essentially architected the organizational structure." In 2016 Schmidt announced he would be co-authoring a book about Campbell's coaching methods. [8]

Steve Jobs reportedly "trusted [Campbell] more than he trusted anybody else." [9], although there was tension between the two, caused by Campbell's ongoing mentoring of Google's board. Despite Jobs's pressure, Campbell refused to cut ties with Google, stating "Don't make me choose. You are not going to like the choice I am going to make." [10]

John Doerr included a dedication to Campbell in his book Measure What Matters, who describied him as "a master leader who created great leaders."

Death

Campbell died of cancer on April 18, 2016 at the age of 75. He is survived by his wife, Eileen Bocci Campbell, his two children, and his three step children. [11][12] On April 21, 2016 Apple announced that they would be delaying their earnings release until Tuesday April 26, 2016 for a memorial that Apple had held.[13]

Head coaching record

Year Team Overall Conference Standing Bowl/playoffs
Columbia Lions (Ivy League) (1974–1979)
1974 Columbia 1–8 0–7 8th
1975 Columbia 2–7 2–5 T–6th
1976 Columbia 3–6 2–5 T–5th
1977 Columbia 2–7 1–6 T–7th
1978 Columbia 3–5–1 2–4–1 T–5th
1979 Columbia 1–8 1–6 7th
Columbia: 12–41–1 8–33–1
Total: 12–41–1
†Indicates Bowl Coalition, Bowl Alliance, BCS, or CFP / New Years' Six bowl.

References

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  5. ↑ Bill Campbell Announces Retirement from Intuit Board of Directors
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