Indian-origin technology executive Arvind Krishna (57)has been elected Chief Executive Officer of American IT giant IBM after a "world-class succession process", succeeding Virginia Rometty,who described him as the "right CEO for the next era at IBM" and "well-positioned" to lead the company into the cloud and cognitive era.
The IBM Board of Directors elected Arvind Krishna as company CEO and member of the Board of Directors effective April 6. Mr Krishna is currently IBM Senior Vice President for Cloud and Cognitive Software and will succeed Rometty, 62 who will retire after almost 40 years with the company at the end of the year.
Arvind Krishna had joined IBM in 1990 and has an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and 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," Mr Krishna said in a press statement released by IBM.
Arvind Krishna said "IBM has such talented people and technology that we can bring together to help our clients solve their toughest problems. "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," he said
Arvind Krishna's appointment as head of the global IT giant adds to the growing list of Indian-origin executives at the helm of some of the biggest multinational companies.
Arvind Krishna joins the club that includes
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai
MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga
PepsiCo's former CEO Indra Nooyi
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen
Virginia 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. She described Krishna as the "right CEO for the next era at IBM" who is "well-positioned to lead IBM and its clients into the cloud and cognitive era."
Virginia Rometty said Mr Krishna is 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."
She said Arvind Krishna has grown IBM's Cloud and Cognitive Software business and led the largest acquisition in the company''s history. Krishna was a "principal architect" of the company's acquisition of Red Hat.
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