GINNI ROMETTY LEAVES OFFICE AS ARVIND KRISHNA TAKES OVER AS IBM CEO
As IBM’s Ginni Rometty leaves her role in April, after she had helped lead a massive transformation for eight-year, but struggled to deliver growth at a time other tech giant’s fortune blossomed. At some point in her tenure, the company’s financial ride witnessed a straight decline in revenue. However, she will be succeeded by her Cloud and Cognitive-software division boss ‘Arvind Krishna’ but not until after her departure on the 6th of April.
According to reports, Krishna reportedly drove the massive $34 billion acquisition of open-source software giant ‘Red Hat’ late 2018. In the process, the Chief Executive of Red Hat ‘Jim Whitehurst’ was eventually appointed the company’s president.
In another dimension, it’s understood this is the first time the company will have its leadership structured with a CEO and a separate president. The two executive teams will function differently, one with deep IBM experience while the other will focus on reviving the company’s fortune.
In a statement, Ms. Rometty made it clear that Krishna is the right man for the job, as she steps down. Referring to Mr. Krishna, she said “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”.
Meanwhile, as Ginni Rometty leaves, it’s evident the company’s leadership is structured to re-position IBM’s future on the booming cloud-computing field, an area currently led by rivals such as Microsoft. MSFT 2.82% and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN 0.68%.
While on the other hand, it’s been figured out the subject company built its success on providing technology to other companies, this impacted on IBM as corporations shifted from storing data on big servers they owned to renting the same computing capacity from service providers, known as cloud computing.
Ms. Rometty did her best in moving the company forward, only that she took over during a tough period when technology was shifting from an on-prem software stack to the cloud. As the company’s CEO, she saw what was coming, in her capacity used the company’s cash to acquire what she needed to make the switch, and also taking advantage of IBM’s extensive R&D to develop other in-house pieces.
Responding to this development, an analyst at Stifel Financial Corp ‘David Grossman’ said “I think she made a lot of changes. You could argue that she didn’t make enough changes quickly enough, but I think the business has transformed during that period”.
Some other analysts also gave their own opinion, surprisingly after the company announced that Ginni Rometty is stepping down, IBM shares rose 3% in aftermarket trading following the announcement.
It is also important to know that, Ms. Rometty came on board in 2012, and she is the first woman to lead IBM, a big technology company where female CEOs are scarce.
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