IBM appoints Arvind Krishna as its new CEO, replacing Virginia Rometty who was heading the IBM since 2012. In another appointment, IBM named Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat as its new President.
Arvind Krishna is currently heading the IBM’s cloud and cognitive software unit and played a key role in the Company’s acquisition of Red Hat. As per the Company’s statement, “Rometty will continue as executive chairman and serve through the end of the year, when she will retire after almost 40 years with the company.”. The shares rose about 5% in extended trading.
The announcement comes as a “welcome and overdue leadership change,” said Wedbush Securities Inc. analyst Moshe Katri. “At least that’s how we’re looking at it — and obviously the market seems to agree.”
Speaking on Arvind’s appointment, the company said in a statement, “He is an authentic leader who lives the values of IBM and has taken on ever-increasing responsibilities across the company.” Adding to that, Bloomberg Intelligence Analyst Anurag Rana said, “This is the guy who championed the Red Hat deal so it’s good for IBM as a whole.”
“This new team, Arvind and Jim, bring more of an in-depth tech savviness to the top, which is necessary in this rapidly changing technology industry,” said Arvind Ramnani, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Arvind holds an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK) and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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