Big blue made history today by appointing its first female CEO in its over 100 years of existence.
Virginia Rometty, 54, formerly IBM’s head of global sales and a board member at American International Group (AIG), will take over the reigns of IBM on January 1, 2012, when current IBM CEO and chairman Samuel J. Palmisano, 60, steps down after nine years of being in control of the company. He’ll remain on as chairman of IBM’s board, which voted to elect Rometty to the post.
“There is no greater privilege in business than to be asked to lead IBM, especially at this moment,” Rometty said in a statement. “Sam had the courage to transform the company based on his belief that computing technology, our industry, even world economies would shift in historic ways. All of that has come to pass. Today, IBM’s strategies and business model are correct. Our ability to execute and deliver consistent results for clients and shareholders is strong. This is due to Sam’s leadership, his discipline, and his unshakable belief in the ability of IBM and IBMers to lead into the future. Sam taught us, above all, that we must never stop reinventing IBM.”
As the New York Times observed, Rometty’s new role instantly levels her among “the highest-profile women executives in corporate America,” (TPM note: and highest-paid) “joining a small group of women chief executives that includes Ursula Burns of Xerox, Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo, Ellen J. Kullman of DuPont and Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard.”
The paper also says that the decision comes after weeks of infighting over who would assume the mantle left by Pamisano, who is retiring at age 60, the traditional retirement age for company executives.
Still, IBM was adamant that the decision wasn’t based at all on Rometty’s gender.
“It’s got zero to do with progressive social policies,” Mr. Palmisano told the Times.
“Given Ginni’s experience running the largest portion of the business by revenue, she was a logical choice,” said Macquarie Securities analyst Brad Zelnick, Reuters reported.
Whoever it was that would take over Palmisano, there was no doubting that they’d have big shoes to fill: Palmisano successfully oversaw IBM’s transition away from commodity products like PCs into enterprise services, consulting and more forward-looking research efforts, including artificial intelligence program Watson and other brain-like computers. In the process, he managed to make it into the second-most valuable tech company in the world after Apple, recently besting Microsoft for that spot on the totem pole.
