Indian-American Arvind Krishna, the newly-appointed CEO of the world’s oldest technology company IBM, has joined the high-profile league of Indian-American honchos who are calling the shots at the $1-trillion strong companies in Silicon Valley.
Krishna, 57, joins Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Alphabet and Google’s Sundar Pichai, Adobe’s Santanu Narayan and Mastercard’s Ajay Banga in an elite Indian-origin CEO club.
Arvind Krishna will take over from long-serving Virginia ‘Ginni’ Rometty upon her retirement.
Currently IBM’s Senior Vice President for Cloud and Cognitive Software and principal architect of the company’s acquisition of Red Hat, Krishna will also be a member of the Board of Directors, effective from 6 April.
An IBM veteran who joined the company 30 years back, Krishna did his schooling from Stanes Higher Secondary School in Bedford, Coonoor. He earned his BE in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (1980-1985) and took a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
His current responsibilities also include IBM Security and Cognitive Applications business, and IBM Research.
Previously, he was general manager of IBM’s Systems and Technology Group’s development and manufacturing organisation, according to the company. Prior to that, Krishna built and led many of IBM’s data-related businesses.
He earned his BE in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technologyhttps://www.iitsystem.ac.in/ Kanpur (1980-1985) and took a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
His current responsibilities also include IBM Security and Cognitive Applications business, and IBM Research.
Previously, he was general manager of IBM’s Systems and Technology Group’s development and manufacturing organisation, according to the company. Prior to that, Krishna built and led many of IBM’s data-related businesses.
Last year, he led the largest acquisition in IBM’s history – the $34 billion takeover of open source software giant Red Hat.
“Arvind is the right CEO for the next era at IBM,” 62-year-old Rometty said. “He 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. Arvind has grown IBM’s Cloud and Cognitive Software business and led the largest acquisition in the company’s history,” she added.
“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,” said Krishna.
“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,” he added.
The company also announced that James Whitehurst, IBM Senior Vice President and CEO of Red Hat, will now be IBM President, effective April 6.
Nicknamed Big Blue, IBM is one of 30 companies included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and one of the world’s largest employers, with over 350,000 employees, known as IBMers.
At least 70 per cent of IBMers are based outside the US, the largest being India.
Meanwhile, Narayen, Banga and Nadella were among the top 10 best-performing chief executives in the world, according to the latest Harvard Business Review (HBR) list. While Narayen ranked 6th in the list of best-performing 100 CEOs, Banga was placed at 7th position and Nadella at 9th.
Meanwhile, another India-origin technocrat has joined this elite CEO club. Co-sharing workspace company WeWork has named Indian-American real estate veteran Sandeep Mathrani as the new CEO of the company.
IANS