Arvind Krishna to replace Ginni Rometty as IBM CEO in April
31 Jan 2020
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IT giant International Business Machines (IBM) today announced that its board of directors has elected IBM senior vice president for Cloud and Cognitive Software, Arvind Krishna, to replace current CEO Ginni Rometty, who will become chairman of the board.
Rometty, who had been IBM's chairman, president and CEO, will continue as executive chairman of the board and serve through the end of the year, when she will retire.
Krishna, who reportedly drove the massive $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat at the end of 2018, will take over on 6 April after a couple of months of transition, IBM stated in a release.
The IBM board also elected James Whitehurst, IBM senior vice president and CEO of Red Hat, as IBM President.
In a statement Rometty called Krishna the right man for the job, as she steps back after more than eight years on the job. “Through his multiple experiences running businesses in IBM, Arvind has built an outstanding track record of bold transformations and proven business results, and is an authentic, values-driven leader. He is well-positioned to lead IBM and its clients into the cloud and cognitive era,” she said in a statement.
Rometty described Krishna as a "brilliant technologist who has played a significant role in developing our key technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum computing and blockchain. He is also a superb operational leader, able to win today while building the business of tomorrow."
In choosing Krishna and Whitehurst, the board chose a technically and business savvy team to lead the company moving forward. It’s clear that the board went with two men who have a deep understanding of cloud and cognitive computing technologies, two areas that are obviously going to be front and center of technology for the foreseeable future, and areas where IBM needs to thrive, she added.
Krishna, 57, joined IBM in 1990. An undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, he also holds a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
"I am thrilled and humbled to be elected as the next Chief Executive Officer of IBM, and appreciate the confidence that Ginni and the board have placed in me," Krishna said in a press statement released by IBM.
"IBM has such talented people and technology that we can bring together to help our clients solve their toughest problems," Krishna said.
"I am looking forward to working with IBMers, Red Hatters and clients around the world at this unique time of fast-paced change in the IT industry. We have great opportunities ahead to help our clients advance the transformation of their business while also remaining the global leader in the trusted stewardship of technology," Krishna said.
Krishna joins the rank of successful Indian-origin executives that includes Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga, PepsiCo's former CEO Indra Nooyi and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.
