Ginni Rometty

Ginni Rometty (Virginia Marie Rometty, born July 29, 1957) is an American business executive who led IBM through the 2010s. She joined the company as a systems engineer in 1981 and rose through its services, sales, marketing and strategy organizations before becoming president and chief executive in January 2012, the first woman to head IBM. She later added the chairmanship and stepped down as chief executive on April 1, 2020, retiring from the company on December 31, 2020 after nearly forty years there. As general manager of the global services division she helped negotiate IBM's 2002 purchase of the PricewaterhouseCoopers IT consulting business and became known for integrating the two companies. As chief executive she steered IBM toward analytics, cloud computing and cognitive computing systems. Her tenure drew both honors, including several lists of influential people in technology, and sharp criticism over executive pay, layoffs, outsourcing and a long run of quarterly revenue declines.