IBM CEO Ginni Rometty leaves

  • Push-out Score determined
  • After almost eight years in the position
  • Accolades and praise for Rometty
  • Arvind Krishna taking over
  • Rometty spoke at length and said 175 words

(exechange) — Armonk, New York, January 30, 2020 — Ginni Rometty, chief executive of IBM, leaves. As announced by International Business Machines Corp. in a news release on Thursday, January 30, 2020, Virginia M. (Ginni) Rometty leaves her post as chief executive officer at the computer hardware company after almost eight years in the role, effective April 6, 2020.

Among the 3,000 largest publicly held companies incorporated in the U.S. based on market capitalization, the average tenure of the CEOs who announced their departure over the past 12 months was 7.5 years, according to data compiled by exechange.

Ginni Rometty’s duties as CEO will be taken over by Arvind Krishna, most recently Senior Vice President for Cloud and Cognitive Software of International Business Machines Corp.

Ginni Rometty’s move is part of a management shake-up also involving the position of President.

“Arvind is the right CEO to lead IBM”

A reason for Ginni Rometty’s departure from the CEO post was not explicitly provided. Michael Eskew, Lead Director of the IBM Board of Directors, said: “With the strong foundation now established by Ginni for IBM’s future, the Board is confident that Arvind is the right CEO to lead IBM.”

Precise information regarding Ginni Rometty’s future plans was not immediately available.

“Retire”

IBM said: “Virginia Rometty, IBM Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, will continue as Executive Chairman of the Board and serve through the end of the year, when she will retire after almost 40 years with the company.”

Share price decline

The announcement follows a decline in International Business Machines Corp.’s share price of 28% since October 2012.

In the position of CEO since 2012

Ginni Rometty became CEO of the Company in 2012.

Rometty joined IBM in 1981.

She was elected senior vice president of Global Business Services in 2005, senior vice president of Sales and Distribution in 2009, senior vice president and group executive of Sales, Marketing, and Strategy in 2010, president and chief executive officer of IBM in early 2012 and chairman in late 2012.

She is a member of the Business Roundtable, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Board of Trustees of Northwestern University and the Board of Overseers and Managers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and formerly served on the President’s Export Council.

Push-out Score determined

The Push-out Score™ determined by exechange gauges the pressure surrounding the management change on a scale of 0 to 10.

exechange reached out to IBM and offered the company the opportunity to comment on the score.

Read the full story in the exechange report 5.2020 ($).