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Ginni Rometty

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Ginni Rometty
Ginni Rometty at the Fortune MPW Summit in 2011
Rometty at the 2011 Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit
Born
Virginia Marie Nicosia[1][2]

(1957-07-29) July 29, 1957 (age 67)
Chicago, Illinois, United States
NationalityAmerican
EducationNorthwestern University (B.S.)
Occupation(s)chairman, president, and CEO of IBM
PredecessorSamuel J. Palmisano

Virginia Marie "Ginni" Rometty (born July 29, 1957)[4][5] is an American business executive. She is the current chairman, president, and CEO of IBM, and the first woman to head the company.[6][7] 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 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,[8][9][10] and Fortune naming her among the "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" for ten consecutive years.[11][12] Her tenure as CEO has been met by criticism related to executive compensation, outsourcing,[13][14] and IBM's 21 consecutive quarters of revenue decline.[15]

Early life and education

Rometty graduated from the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University in 1979 with high honors, receiving a bachelor's degree in computer science and electrical engineering.[16] Rometty was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, eventually serving as its president.[17]

Career

After graduation in 1979, Rometty went to work for General Motors Institute. In 1981, she joined IBM as a systems engineer in its Detroit office.[18] She joined IBM's Consulting Group in 1991. In 2002, she "championed the purchase of the big business consulting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, for $3.5 billion."[19] Rometty became senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing, and strategy in 2009[18] and is "credited with spearheading IBM's growth strategy by getting the company into the cloud computing and analytics businesses. She was also at the helm of readying Watson, the Jeopardy! playing computer, for commercial use."[20]

On October 25, 2011, IBM announced that she was to be the company's next president and CEO, with Sam Palmisano stepping down but retaining his position as chairman.[18] Rometty's appointment marks the first time a woman has been CEO of IBM.[6] Regarding her promotion, Palmisano stated, "Ginni got it because she deserved it... It’s got zero to do with progressive social policies."[19]

On September 26, 2012, IBM announced that Rometty was taking on the added role of chairman of IBM, as Samuel Palmisano prepared to retire at the end of 2012. Rometty commenced her duty as chairman, president, and CEO of IBM on October 1, 2012.[7] One of her goals is to focus company efforts on the cloud and cognitive computing systems, such as Watson.[21]

Boards and honors

Rometty serves on the Council on Foreign Relations; the Board of Trustees of her alma mater Northwestern University; the Board of Overseers and Board of Managers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center;[22] and is a council member at the Latin America Conservation Council, a subsidiary of The Nature Conservancy.[23] She also served on the Board of Directors of AIG from 2006 until 2009.[24]

In 2014, Rometty was featured in the PBS documentary The Boomer List.[25] Also that year, she became the third female member of the Augusta National Golf Club.[26] She has received honorary doctoral degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2014) and Northwestern University (2015).[27][28]

In Fortune's September 15, 2015 issue, Rometty ranked 3rd on their Most Powerful Women List.[21]

Named the 11th most powerful woman on the 2016 Forbes list: The World's 100 Most Powerful Women.[29]

Criticism

Over Rometty's tenure as CEO she has been met by increasing criticism, most notably a confrontation with Mark Cuban, who said she had lacked vision, with IBM losing revenue for 21 consecutive quarters.[15] IBM employees have also criticized her for taking pay bonuses despite massive layoffs of IBM employees (replacing them with cheaper talent offshore or with H1B Visa holders), and poor performance.[14][30] Rometty has been named among the worst CEOs by several publications including the Motley Fool, 24/7 Wallstreet, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal.[31][32][33][34]

Personal life

Rometty is married to Mark Anthony Rometty, a principal investor in the Bam Oil Company. The couple has no children.[35]

References

  1. ^ "Virginia Rometty". prezi.com. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  2. ^ Waters, Richard. "More than a big smile on Big Blue's face". October 28, 2011. Financial Times. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  3. ^ http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-paid-rometty-193-million-in-2014-2015-3?IR=T
  4. ^ Aluise, Susan J. (May 10, 2012). "America's 10 Most Powerful Female CEOs". InvestorPlace. Retrieved 10 July 2014.
  5. ^ Barnett, Megan (November 14, 2011). "Buffett goes big in Big Blue". Fortune. Retrieved 10 July 2014.
  6. ^ a b "IBM Names Rometty to Succeed Palmisano as First Female CEO". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. 25 October 2011. Retrieved 25 October 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)[permanent dead link‍]
  7. ^ a b "IBM's Ginni Rometty Completes Her Ascent by Adding Chairman Role". Bloomberg. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  8. ^ Forbes magazine's "World's 100 Most Powerful People" in 2014."The world's 100 most powerful". Forbes. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  9. ^ Time 100 in 2012,Mayer, Marissa (18 April 2012). "The 100 Most Influential People in the World". Time. Retrieved 18 April 2012.
  10. ^ 50 Most Influential list of Bloomberg Markets magazine in September 2012
  11. ^ "Ginni Rometty". Fortune. 20 September 2012. Retrieved 20 September 2012. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  12. ^ "Ginni Rometty". Fortune. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  13. ^ "CEO's who have to go". 24/7 Wall Street.
  14. ^ a b "Fortune Magazine". Gets a Raise Despite Tumbling Stock Price.
  15. ^ a b "Mark Cuban Slams IBM: It's 'No Longer A Tech Company. They Have No Vision.'". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  16. ^ "NU appoints 5 new members to Board of Trustees". Northwestern University. June 25, 2010. Archived from the original on June 29, 2010. Retrieved 2011-10-26.
  17. ^ Hempel, Jessi (8 October 2012). "IBM's Ginni Rometty looks ahead". Fortune.
  18. ^ a b c "IBM Names Virginia Rometty as First Female CEO". Wired. October 25, 2011. Retrieved 2011-10-26.
  19. ^ a b "I.B.M. Names Virginia Rometty as New Chief Executive". The New York Times. October 25, 2011. Retrieved 2011-10-26. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  20. ^ "IBM CEO Sam Palmisano to step down". CNN. 25 October 2011. Retrieved 25 October 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  21. ^ a b Bellstrom, Kristen (September 15, 2015). "Fortune's Most Powerful Women List". Fortune.
  22. ^ "2010 Annual Report" (PDF). Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Retrieved 2011-10-26.
  23. ^ "LACC Members". Latin America Conservation Council website. The Nature Conservancy. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
  24. ^ IBM's Rometty Breaks Ground as Company's First Female Leader. Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 26 October 2011.
  25. ^ "The Boomer List". PBS. pp. Rometty starting at 1 hr 6 min. Retrieved 9 October 2014.
  26. ^ "Virginia Rometty becomes 3rd female member of Augusta National - ESPN". ESPN.com. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
  27. ^ "Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Graduates 1,613 in 208th Commencement Ceremony". Retrieved 4 April 2015.
  28. ^ "IBM executive, Northwestern alumna Virginia Rometty to speak at 2015 commencement". Retrieved 4 April 2015.
  29. ^ "World's Most Powerful Women". Forbes. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
  30. ^ "IBM: Employees React to Rometty, Exec Bonuses as Layoffs Reach 5K". thevarguy.com. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  31. ^ "CEOs Who Have to Go in 2016". 247wallst.com. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  32. ^ Lublin, Joann S. (2015-06-25). "How Much the Best-Performing and Worst-Performing CEOs Got Paid". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  33. ^ Hartung, Adam. "Why You Do Not Want To Own IBM: Growth Stalls Are Deadly". Forbes. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  34. ^ Mattera, Sam (2017-05-02). "The Worst Tech CEOs of 2014 -- The Motley Fool". The Motley Fool. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  35. ^ Stewart, James B. (5 November 2011). "A C.E.O.'s Support System, a k a Husband". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 May 2013.

Media related to Ginni Rometty at Wikimedia Commons

Business positions
Preceded by CEOs of IBM
2012–present 		Succeeded by
Present CEO
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