Ginni Rometty will step down as CEO of IBM in April. Photo / AP
Ginni Rometty will step down as CEO of IBM in April. Photo / AP
IBM said Thursday that Ginni Rometty will step down as chief executive in April, capping an eight-year run at the helm during which the technology giant struggled with growth. She will be succeeded by Arvind Krishna, currently the company's senior vice president for cloud and cognitive software.
Rometty, a 40-yearveteran of the company, will continue as executive chairwoman through the end of the year, when she will retire. In a statement, IBM said Krishna was the company's chief architect of its acquisition of open source software company Red Hat, the largest acquisition in IBM's history, and said James Whitehurst, senior vice president and CEO of Red Hat, would become IBM's president. Krishna was also elected to IBM's board of directors.
"Arvind is the right CEO for the next era at IBM," Rometty said in a statement. "He is a brilliant technologist who has played a significant role in developing our key technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum computing and blockchain."
IBM called the transition the "outcome of a thorough succession planning process," ticking through Rometty's milestones as CEO, such as acquiring 65 companies, building a US$21 billion ($32.3b) hybrid cloud business and transitioning the company's portfolio toward higher value businesses, divesting nearly US$9b in annual revenue.
Rometty's departure marks another exit from the ranks of female CEOs at the largest publicly traded companies. As of Jan. 15, the research and advocacy group Catalyst counted 29 women, including Rometty, heading S&P 500 companies. That is less than 6 per cent of CEO positions at those companies.
