????蘋果（Apple）多年的財務總監彼得?奧本海默在職業生涯中一向非常低調，除了公司的季度收益電話會議之外，他很少在其他公開場合講話，自覺地把舞臺讓給喬布斯、蒂姆?庫克以及蘋果的其他高管。就連鐵桿果粉也很難在街上把他認出來。

????不過這周情況就不一樣了。上周二，蘋果宣布這位兩朝元老即將退休。奧本海默的功成身退使他躋身為商業史上最成功的CFO之一。財務工作的特點就是要甘居幕后，而且很難脫離其他高管獨立開展工作。今年51歲的奧本海默在蘋果的崛起之路上扮演了重要的角色，尤其是他擔任CFO的這十年，蘋果迅速崛起成一家全球性的大公司，坐擁1600億美元現金。

????BGC Partners公司的分析師科林?吉利斯認為：“他的表現非常了不起，我認為他完全可以被視為最優秀的CFO之一。”

????奧本海默的退休，適逢蘋果正在經歷一個關鍵時期。蘋果已經感受到了來自谷歌（Google）和三星（Samsung）等競爭對手的壓力。蘋果標志性產品iPhone和iPad的銷量已經開始放緩，投資者們大聲疾呼，要求蘋果盡快推出新的重磅產品重振聲勢。

????當然，作為CFO，奧本海默并不直接負責公司的日常運營，那是蒂姆?庫克和其他高管的職責。但是在蘋果的18年時間里，奧本海默既經歷了公司瀕臨破產的絕境，也經歷了它的復興，看著它一路走向全球最有價值的公司，因而這位兩朝元老對蘋果也有著不容忽視的影響力。

????奧本海默的財務管理為蘋果公司的驚人增長做出了很大貢獻。在他擔任CFO期間，蘋果的年營收從80億美元增長到現在的1710億美元，翻了20多番。另外他也設計了許多復雜的避稅方法，使蘋果廣大的海外業務的稅務成本降到了最低。雖然很多人批評他鉆了稅制的漏洞，但他堅決為這個策略辯護，而且去年有與庫克一起參加國會聽證時，還成功地打消了一些人的敵意。

????奧本海默身為蘋果高層團隊的一員，在一些重大決策中也扮演了重要角色。另外他還幫助公司確定新產品價格，管理生產成本，預測存貨等等。另外奧本海默還要負責一個很敏感的任務，那就是設定給華爾街看的季度業績預期。（然而在蘋果快速增長的那些年，這份季度預期通常都制訂的太保守了，基本上每次實際收益都超過了預期，令它的準頭不高。）

????CFO聯盟（CFO Alliance，一個擁有5000余會員的財務高管組織）執行長尼克?艾拉克說：“他是蒂姆?庫克的左右手，是在制定和執行政策上最有發言權的人之一。而且不光是在財務方面，在有關消費體驗和全球市場的任何事上都是這樣。”

????奧本海默在管理蘋果的巨額現金方面發現自己竟然沒有前例可循。從來沒有一家上市公司擁有過這么多的現金。多年來，奧本海默以及蘋果的其他高管堅持持有大量現金以備應急。最后在包括激進投資人卡爾?伊坎等投資人的壓力下，蘋果高管放松了“紅線”，決定花1000億美元用于分紅和回購股票，而此舉有助于股價進一步上漲。

????Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's longtime chief financial officer, kept an especially low profile during his tenure. He rarely spoke publicly beyond the company's quarterly earnings calls, and happily left the spotlight to Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and other high-profile members of the company's senior executive team. Even Apple (AAPL) fanatics would have trouble recognizing him on the street.

????That surely won't be the case this week. On Tuesday, Apple announced Oppenheimer's plans to retire. His departure will end one of the most remarkable runs by any chief financial officer, which by the job's very nature is largely behind the scenes and difficult to isolate from the work of other senior executives. Oppenheimer, 51, played a huge role in Apple's rise, and during the decade he served as the company's chief financial officer, Apple blossomed into a huge global business with a $160 billion stockpile of cash.

????"A tremendous performance," said Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Partners. "I think he deserves to be ranked up there with some of the best CFOs."

????Oppenheimer's retirement comes at a pivotal moment for Apple, which is feeling the pressure from rivals like Google and Samsung. Growth in sales of Apple's iconic devices -- the iPhone and iPad -- is slowing, and investors are clamoring for new blockbuster products to take up the slack.

????Of course, ultimate responsibility for day-to-day operations and innovation lies not with the chief financial officer but with chief executive Cook and others on his leadership team. Still, Oppenheimer had formidable sway during an 18-year career that spanned Apple's near-bankruptcy and its eventual comeback as the world's most valuable company.

????His financial management kept up with and helped to fuel Apple's astounding growth. During his tenure, annual revenue rose more than 20-fold to $171 billion from just $8 billion. He also engineered many of the complex maneuvers that helped Apple pay minimal taxes on its vast overseas business. Although intensely criticized for using the tax loopholes, he vigorously defended the strategy and, during testimony before a Congressional committee last year with Cook, succeeded in deflecting some of the hostility.

????As a member of Apple's senior executive team, Oppenheimer played a critical role in major decisions. He helped determine the price of new products, manage manufacturing costs, and forecast inventory. Oppenheimer also handled the sensitive job of setting quarterly earnings guidance for Wall Street. (During Apple's years of rapid growth, that guidance ended up being so conservative that the company routinely beat it, making the exercise largely irrelevant.)

????"He was Tim Cook's right-hand man -- one of the key voices in setting strategy and executing on it," said Nick Araco, chief executive of the CFO Alliance, a networking group of 5,000 finance executives. "This wasn't just about the finance function but everything that touches the consumer experience and global market."

????In overseeing Apple's gargantuan cash hoard, Oppenheimer found himself in uncharted territory. No other public company had ever had so much money sitting around. For years, he and his fellow executives clung to the cash, mostly as a rainy day fund. Ultimately, under pressure from investors, including the activist gadfly Carl Icahn, Apple executives loosened the purse strings and embarked on a plan to spend $100 billion on paying dividends and buying back shares, which helps to lift the stock price.