“My job is to build an IBM that’s durable.” ~ Virginia “Ginni” Rometty, CEO of IBM
Summary: Virginia “Ginni” Rometty is the current chairman, president and CEO of IBM, and the first woman to head the company. Prior to becoming president and CEO in January 2012, she held the positions of senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing, and strategy at IBM. She joined IBM as a systems engineer in its Detroit office in 1981. Rometty’s tenure as CEO has been marked by prestigious awards including by Bloomberg who named her among the 50 Most Influential People in the World, and Fortune naming her among the “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” for ten consecutive years.
Nationality: American
Company: IBM
Net worth: 45 million USD (2016)
Q: Do you feel pressure to get this done quickly? on hbr.org
A: Sure we do. Every leader wants things to go faster. You have to set the bar high and keep moving faster. But my job is to build an IBM that’s durable for a whole era. We take seriously our ongoing responsibility to the clients that run our systems today, to make their work more productive. Supporting those clients takes my revenue down, but I’m proud of it: We run the world’s systems. Without IBM, banks couldn’t operate. Railroads couldn’t move. Airlines couldn’t fly.
