Agreed that it's not necessarily a creative type role, though I don't think it's a stretch to say that creativity would help find new methods of optimising costs.

My mental model of TC is based on a not-very-recent reading of Steve Jobs' bio but it did not leave me with the impression that he was a dealmaker, more of a behind-the-scenes director coming up with innovative ways for Apple to optimise time/costs. I may be wrong though.

In any case, I think the actual rub is that sales vs creative is a false dichotomy; operations/logistics may not be a creative role but it also doesn't fit the sales profile in that dichotomy (imho).