LEADERSHIP TEAM CHANGES AS WELL

Arvind Krishna has today, taken the office of CEO at IBM Corporation, being handed over by Ginni Rometty who will be retiring by the end of 2020.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the new CEO opted to write a letter which was shared with the company’s audience. Krishna’s letter focused on the public health crisis, IBM’s essential role in the world, and his commitments as the new CEO of Big Blue.

With the new leadership, the CEO announced that IBM will now focus on extending its solutions into the depth of hybrid cloud and AI. Big Blue also plans to leverage its systems integration with Red Hat to establish Linux, containers and Kubernetes as the new standard for cloud architectures.

IBM Strategy as well as its Cloud and Cognitive Software unit will be led by Jim Whitehurst, the former CEO of Red Hat and the newly appointed IBM President. Krishna has now appointed Howard Boville, formerly Bank of America Corp.’s chief technology officer to become a senior vice president of cloud platform, leading the IBM Cloud business unit.

“IBM has already built enduring platforms in mainframe, services, and middleware. All three continue to serve our clients. I believe now is the time to build a fourth platform in hybrid cloud,” said Krishna.

“The fundamentals are already in place. Our approach to hybrid cloud is the most flexible and the most cost effective for our clients in the long term. Coupled with our deep expertise, IBM has unique capabilities to help our clients realize the potential of a hybrid cloud business model.”

Still on the leadership team building, Bridget van Kralingely who was the head of IBM’s global industries, clients, platform and blockchain units, will become senior vice president of global markets. Paul Cormier will become the CEO of Red Hat which IBM acquired for $34 billion.

As announced in February, Ginni Rometty will continue as executive chairman of the company’s Board and serve through the end of the year, when she will retire from Big Blue.