IBM appoints first female CEO in 100 years of Company’s history

Virginia Rometty is presently head of sales and marketing at the company.

IBM escorted in the first female CEO in the company's 100-year history on Tuesday.

Virginia "Ginni" Rometty, an experienced woman at the technology giant recognized for its traditional business culture, will conquest as CEO from Sam Palmisano, IBM declared.

Palmisano has been CEO for about ten years and turned 60 this year. He will keep on as a chairman. Rometty, 54, takes over on 1 January 2012. She is presently in charge of sales and marketing at the firm based in Armonk, New York.

After she captured the helm at IBM, women will be CEO of two of the world's biggest technology firms. Last month, Meg Whitman was announced as CEO of Hewlett-Packard Whitman had earlier joined eBay when it was a hatchling startup during the dotcom boom and showed it to become an internet public sale powerhouse. She also ran ineffectively for California governor last year.

While Whitman's HP is an extensive firm in disarray, Rometty will succeed to a finely tuned IBM whose attention on the greater-margin trades of technology services and software has helped it flourish.

Their hiring are "setting a magnificent example" in the encouraging of female administrative, said Jean Bozman, an observer with IDC who has followed both firms intimately for years.

"It is a good gesture," Bozman said. "It does generate an environment in which more of these high-profile women managements can see that's within reach. The more that occurs, the more normal that will be. I feel this might be a largest indication that we've turned a corner. Definitely the Baby Boomers have desired this for a long time."

 

HP, certainly, had another female CEO, Carly Fiorina, but her term finished in bitterness when she was enforced out in 2005 over inadequate funds and the fallout from her hard-fought battle to purchase Compaq Computer.

IBM's decision was unexpected. Palmisano had tamped down previous talk of his retirement, claiming that he wanted to settle on as chief. In exceptional public remarks, he said last year that he was "not going somewhere" and that there's no official policy at IBM dictating when a CEO should retire.

Palmisano said in a statement that Rometty has guided some of IBM's most significant trades, and was involved in the configuration of IBM's business services department. She superwise IBM's $3.5bn purchase of PricewaterhouseCoopers' consulting business in 2002, which is a main component of a plan that has designed IBM a extensively copied company. She is "in excess of a outstanding equipped executive," Palmisano said.

"She brings to the role of CEO an exclusive recipe of vision, client concentrations, instant drive, and enthusiasm for IBMers and the company's future," Palmisano said. "I consider the board allows me that Ginni is the ideal CEO to lead IBM into its second century."

Bobby Cameron, an spectator with Forrester Research who has served with IBM in several responsibilities over the years, said that in meetings with Rometty is "winning" and curious. Her interest in rising technologies, not just the reputable sales heads, is a significant characteristic. Cameron feels she's an exact alternative to carry on Palmisano's work.

"I consider she's smart. She asks queries; she doesn't just come in with a plan, and she's interested in the primary edge, not just what's driving size– all those things are essential for a CEO to have," Cameron said.

Palmisano has the same qualities, Cameron said.

"I feel it will be more of the same, and I think that's a good thing," he said.