John Sculley (born April 6, 1939) is an American businessman. Sculley was vice-president (1970–1977) and president of PepsiCo (1977–1983), until he became CEO of Apple on April 8, 1983, a position he held until leaving in 1993. In May 1987, Sculley was named Silicon Valley's top-paid executive, with an annual salary of US$2.2M.
Sales at Apple increased from $800 million to $8 billion under his management. However, his stint at Apple remains controversial due to his departure from founder Steve Jobs's sales structure, particularly regarding Sculley's decision to compete with IBM in selling computers to the same types of customers. He was ultimately forced out of Apple in 1993 as the company's margins eroded, sales diminished and stock declined.
Sculley is currently a partner in Sculley Brothers, a private investment firm formed in 1995. He is best known for his marketing skills, particularly in his introduction of 'the Pepsi Challenge' at PepsiCo, which allowed the company to gain market share from primary rival Coca Cola, having used similar marketing strategies throughout the 1980s and 1990s at Apple to mass market Macintosh personal computers.