IBM’s election of Arvind Krishna as its next CEO signals the company’s intent to maintain continuity of succession and hire from within, while at the same time promoting new blood in the form of Jim Whitehurst to assist in the transformation of the company.
As well it is signaling a shift to leadership with deeper technical depth and execs with an affinity toward Red Hat — its clear lynchpin for the future.
History will likely judge Ginni Rommety harshly as she set forth bold transformation goals that never materialized into shareholder value. However Rometty will always be remembered foremost as the first woman to lead the company in a male-dominated business.
Rometty’s background was steeped in sales and professional services and despite a spate of M&A – including the $2B Softlayer acquisition, she was unable to realize her goals of returning IBM to growth.
But the reality is that Rometty inherited a bloated organization from predecessor Sam Palmisano who relied on a legacy of professional services and customer intimacy that got marginalized by technology shifts such as cloud computing, IT Consumerization, and AI.
In the end, Rommety’s aspirational goals to re-make IBM as a leader in AI with Watson never trickled down to the P&L and led to an imperative to spend $34B on Red Hat to set up IBM’s next chapter.
