IBM (NYSE: IBM)’s Board of Directors has elected Arvind Krishna as Chief Executive Officer of the company and a member of the Board of Directors, effective April 6, 2020.
Krishna is currently IBM Senior Vice President for Cloud and Cognitive Software, and was a principal architect of the company’s acquisition of Red Hat.
James Whitehurst, IBM Senior Vice President and CEO of Red Hat, was also elected by the Board as IBM President, effective April 6, 2020.
Virginia Rometty, IBM Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, will continue as Executive Chairman of the Board and serve through the end of the year, when she will retire after almost 40 years with the company.
Krishna, 57, is IBM Senior Vice President for Cloud and Cognitive Software, where he leads the IBM business unit that provides the cloud and data platform on which IBM’s clients build the future. His current responsibilities also include the IBM Cloud, IBM Security and Cognitive Applications business, and IBM Research. Previously, he was general manager of IBM’s Systems and Technology Group’s development and manufacturing organization. Prior to that he built and led many of IBM’s data-related businesses. He has an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and a PhD. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He joined IBM in 1990.
Whitehurst, 52, is IBM Senior Vice President and CEO of Red Hat, which was acquired by IBM in 2019. During his tenure at Red Hat, revenue grew over eight times and market capitalization by more than 10 times. He joined Red Hat from Delta Airlines, where he drove significant international expansion and as Chief Operating Officer oversaw all aspects of airline operations. Prior to that he was a partner at The Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Whitehurst earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Economics from Rice University, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Virginia Rometty, 62, became Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of IBM in 2012. Under Rometty’s leadership, IBM acquired 65 companies, built out key capabilities in hybrid cloud, security, industry and data, and AI both organically and inorganically, and completed one of the largest technology acquisitions in history. She built a $21 billion hybrid cloud business and established IBM’s leadership in AI, quantum computing and blockchain, while divesting nearly $9 billion in annual revenue to focus the portfolio on IBM’s high value, integrated offerings.
FinSMEs
31/01/2020