International Business Machine Corps has announced that a female, Virginia "Ginni" Rometty, will be the next chief executive office for the company. She is succeeding Sam Palmisano and is the first female CEO in the company's 100 year history. Rometty is currently head of sales and marketing, so with her knowledge of the company and sales, she should be able to keep the company's profit increasing.
The company has had such a profit growth that it is at thheir highest share price since 1915 and in order to keep that going, Rometty is going to have to lead her company to continue to go down the right path. Sam will stay with the company as a chairman and the move will not be in affect until January 1st. Palmisano has announced that between 2010 and 2015, the company plans on adding 20 to revenue. This is give a tough task for Rometty, but Palmisano has liked what he has seen in her and believes she was the right fit for the job. Palmisano says she is superb in the operational leadership standpoint and has already helped the company grow. Virginia first caught his eye in 2002 when she helped complete the $3.9 billion acquisition of PwC consulting, which was the largest in IBM's history.
Rometty is originally from Chicago and got her degree from Northwestern. One of her first jobs was with General Motors doing an internship and then landed her job with IBM.
Throughout the article, I learn of her attributes and what she brings to the organization but I think she will succeed as the CEO because she has experience. She was able to work her way up through the organization and learn the ropes. She had enough experience to have her managers/bosses trust her and be able to feel comfortable enough to promote her. She recently went back to Northwestern and gave a commencements speech and encouraged all the students to challenge themselves and be able to think and use their skills. I think with that mind set, always wanting to win another challenge and keep going, she posses the skills to be a powerful leader and has the ability to get the company growing.
She is going to have 426,000 subordinates and will have to make sure they are all on the same page in order to keep the profit rising. I do not think there is any challenge she is afraid of and sounds very positive going into her new position.
- Matt Kester
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-25/ibm-names-rometty-to-succeed-palmisano-as-first-female-ceo.html
I think that she will be a great leader for IBM. She is not lacking any experience in her field, especially with the credit that she received for helping the company merge with PwC. She seems like a logical replacement due to the fact that she is the head of sales and marketing. She also has extensive knowledge and expertise in the company.
ReplyDelete-Brandon Leitschuh