Susan Barnes

Susan Kelly Barnes was the Chief Financial Officer of NeXT.

Education
Barnes received a degree in archaeology from Bryn Mawr College in 1976. She received an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Apple Computer
Barnes joined Apple Computer in 1981 as the financial controller of the Macintosh division, first reporting to financial executive Debi Coleman and then directly to co-founder Steve Jobs. In 1985, Barnes and Coleman helped Jobs to get Apple to acquire a 19.99% stake in Adobe Systems, the developer of PostScript.

NeXT
When Apple co-founder Steve Jobs left the company in 1985, Barnes also left and joined Jobs as a founding member of NeXT, where she became the Chief Financial Officer. In 1989, she helped arrange an investment of $100 million by Canon in exchange for a 16.7 percent stake in the company. Barnes married fellow Apple and NeXT colleague Bud Tribble. She left NeXT in 1991 to spend more time with her family, including a young new child.

After NeXT
Barnes then became the chief financial officer of investment banking firm Richard C. Blum & Associates. She later served as CFO for Intuitive Surgical, a clinical robotics manufacturer, from 1997 to 2005. In February 2010, Barnes joined Pacific Biosciences, a DNA sequencing company, and helped it raise $200 million through an IPO in October 2010. She is also a trustee and member of the board of Bryn Mawr College.

Articles

 * Steve Jobs' legacy includes the women he inspired by Shara Tibken at CNET (2015-11-02)