IBM Appoints First Female CEO
IBM has announced the appointment of its very first female chief executive on Tuesday. The company’s senior vice president Virginia “Ginni” Rometty will succeed current CEO Samuel J. Palmisano when he retires early next year.
Palmisano, 60, has served as CEO since 2002 but will remain as chairman of IBM after he steps down.
Rometty, 54, and Palmisano both helped IBM grow from selling just personal computers to selling software and services.
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Rometty will join other top women executives in America, including Ursula Burns of Xerox, Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo, Ellen J. Kullman of DuPont and Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard.
“Ginni got it because she deserved it,” Palmisano said, according to NY Times. “It’s got zero to do with progressive social policies.”
“IBM is selling business solutions, not just products,” said Frank Gens, chief analyst for the technology market research firm IDC, as reported on NY Times. “Rometty has been at the forefront of that effort.”
Rometty graduated from Northwestern University with an undergraduate degree in computer science. She first joined IBM in 1981 as a systems engineer. She became IBM’s senior vice president in 2009.
