The IBM Board of Directors elected Krishna as company CEO and member of the Board of Directors effective April 6.
Technology executive Arvind Krishna, an IIT alumnus, has been elected Chief Executive Officer of American IT giant International Business Machines Corp (IBM) after a "world-class succession process", succeeding Virginia Rometty.
The IBM Board of Directors elected Krishna as company CEO and member of the Board of Directors effective April 6.
Krishna, 57, 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.
Virginia Rometty describes Krishna as the right CEO for the next era at IBM and "well-positioned" to lead the company into the cloud and cognitive era.
"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," Krishna said in a press statement released by IBM.
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," Krishna said.
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. 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 and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.
Who is Arvind Krishna
According to his profile on the IBM website, Krishna is the recipient of distinguished alumni awards from IITK and the University of Illinois, is the co-author of 15 patents, has been the editor of IEEE and ACM journals, and has published extensively in technical conferences and journals.
His current responsibilities also included the IBM Cloud, IBM Security and Cognitive Applications business, and IBM Research. He leads the unit's strategy, product design, offering development, marketing, sales and service and also guides IBM's overall strategy in core and emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, blockchain, cloud platform services, data-driven solutions, and nanotechnology, according to his profile on the IBM website.
Previously, he was general manager of IBM Systems and Technology Group's development and manufacturing organisation, responsible for developing and engineering advanced semiconductor materials through microprocessors, servers, and storage systems. Prior to that, Arvind was the general manager of IBM Information Management, which included database, information integration, and big data software solutions. He served as vice president of strategy for IBM Software. He also held several key technical roles in IBM Software and IBM Research, where he pioneered IBM's security software business.
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.
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