Ginni Rometty

Virginia "Ginni" M. Rometty is IBM's first female CEO effective since 25 Oct 2011. Prior to this she has been Senior Vice President and Group Executive Sales, Marketing and Strategy for IBM.  She has been named to Fortune magazine's "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" for seven consecutive years, ranking #7 for 2011.




Biography


Rometty graduated in 1979 with high honors, receiving a bachelor's degree in computer science and electrical engineering from Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University.
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. 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." Rometty became senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy in 2009.Rometty is "credited with spearheading IBM's growth strategy by getting the company into the cloud computing and analytics businesses. She has also been at the helm of readying Watson, the Jeopardy! playing computer, for commercial use." On October 25, 2011, IBM announced that she will be the company's next president and CEO, with Sam Palmisano stepping down but retaining his position as chairman. Rometty's appointment will mark the first time a female has been CEO of IBM. Regarding her promotion, Palmisano stated, "Ginni got it because she deserved it... It’s got zero to do with progressive social policies."
Rometty serves on the Board of Trustees of her alma mater Northwestern University, as well as on the Board of Overseers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.