One of the tech industry’s most high-profile female leaders has stepped down.
Virginia Rometty was first announced as CEO of IBM in 2011, at the time joining the likes of then-CEO of HP Meg Whitman and Facebook COO Sherly Sandberg as one of the few female executives in the technology sector.
During her tenure, Rometty helped oversee IBM’s transformation into the cloud era and led investment into high value segments of the IT market, reiventing 50 per cent of IBM’s portfolio and building a $US21 billion cloud business.
She was also at the helm last year when IBM made the bold call to spin out its marketing cloud business IBM Watson, now Acoustic.
Prior to becoming CEO Rometty served at IBM as senior vice president for sales, marketing and strategy, where she was widely credited with leading IBM’s growth strategy by getting the company into the cloud computing and analytics businesses.
In 2002, she helped negotiate IBM’s acquistion of PwC’s consulting arm.
“Ginni [Rometty] has provided outstanding leadership for IBM, substantially transforming the company and ushering in a new cloud and cognitive era,” said IBM Board of Directors lead director Michael Eskew.
“She has taken bold strategic actions to reposition IBM for the future, shedding businesses and growing new units organically and through acquisition, all while achieving record diversity and employee engagement and setting the industry standard for responsible technology ethics and data stewardship.”
To learn more about female technology leaders like Rometty and to hear from some of Australia’s top female tech talent, get your tickets to B&T‘s Women Leading Tech event, taking place on April 8 in Sydney.
You can also submit your award entries here. Entries close next Wednesday (Febrary 5).
