GINNI ROMETTY TO STEP DOWN AS IBM-CEO, ARVIND KRISHNA TO REPLACE

GINNI ROMETTY TO STEP DOWN AS IBM-CEO, ARVIND KRISHNA TO REPLACE

One of the top women executives of all time, Ginni Rometty, a corporate world darling, an admired persona, is to step down from her successful position of IBM CEO.

Rometty, 62, will be replaced in April by Arvind Krishna, the man behind the boost of the company's cloud computing vertical. The decision has come as a surprise to all after the market closed on Thursday, in a statement, one of the most prominent female faces of the business world was all praise for the board at IBM. To the end of this year, she will serve as the term of the executive chairman of the company.

There are onl6y 33 women who have held influential chief executive positions in the Fortune 500 companies, state a non-profit organisation, Catalyst, which works closely with women at top positions to enhance the working environment situation and conditions at the workplace for them.  In the last few years, the conditions have gotten better for women but the number still holds at a mere 7% of the total regardless of a steady rise.

Arvind, 57, joined IBM in 1990 and has served as one of the top executives, currently holding the position of the Vice President of the cloud and cognitive software division at the company. He is also the co-author of 15 patents and earlier has worked on information management and security software according to the information available on the official website of IBM. The shares have witnessed a jump of 5% after the announcement made by Rometty on Thursday and Arvind becoming the 10th CEO of IBM.

Describing Arvind, Rometty states him as a "brilliant technologist who has played a significant role in developing our key technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum computing and blockchain" and a "superb operational leader."

The public statement has come 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."

Jim Whitehurst, the Red Hat CEO, was also announced the new President of IBM, the talks had been on the table for a while and anticipated prior to the announcement of his takeover of the position was made. On the changes made in the company and on the arrival of Krishna and Whitehurst, the company chalked that the time had come for a seasoned technologist and an operating expert to come into the picture.

IBM for long in history has provided fair and ample opportunities to able and deserving people. The company has proven to be progressive in many ways; the industry has seen many leaders coming in and out of this company.