Virginia Rometty

Chair, president, and CEO of IBM

• Born: July 29, 1957
• Place of Birth: Chicago, Illinois

Primary Company/Organization: IBM

Introduction

Virginia Rometty, a computer scientist and electrical engineer, became president and chief executive officer (CEO) of IBM on January 1, 2012, and also became chair of IBM"s board of directors on October 1, 2012. She was the first woman named to lead the company in its one hundred years in business. Rometty joined IBM as a systems engineer in 1981 and spent the next three decades rising through the ranks. She held a variety of positions, establishing a reputation for technological expertise and people skills that had insiders speculating about her as a possible CEO at least a decade before the historic announcement that she would lead the company. Immediately prior to being named IBM's top executive, she served as senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing, and strategy. She was a key player in IBM's transformation from a seller of goods into a provider of technological solutions to problems in finance, insurance, health care, and transportation.

Early Life

Virginia “Ginni” Rometty was born Virginia Marie Nicosia in Chicago, Illinois, on July 2, 1957. Her parents divorced when she was young, and she and her three younger siblings were brought up by their mother, a strong woman who fostered an expectation of high achievement in her children. Rometty's brother rose from a position as a commodities trader to CEO of the Allenberg Cotton Company, a major international cotton-trading firm. One of her sisters, computer scientist Annette Ripper, was a partner with the management consultant company Accenture for eighteen years. Her other sister, Darlene Nicosia, became director of Europe procurement for Coca-Cola.

Rometty majored in computer science and electrical engineering at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science in Evanston, Illinois, at a time when few women were training as engineers. In 1979, she graduated with highest honors with a BS degree. Rometty credits her years at Northwestern with honing her problem-solving skills, an education more valuable than the specific knowledge she acquired. After graduation, she began an internship with the General Motors Institute (now Kettering University). General Motors used the institute, which became a degree-granting college known for its commitment to cooperative education in 1945, as a training ground for its own engineers and managers. Rometty met and married her husband, Mark Rometty, while they were both students at the institute. The training she received there gave her an edge in 1981, when she accepted a job as a systems engineer with International Business Machines (IBM) in Detroit, Michigan.

Life's Work

During her early years at IBM, Rometty held several positions. She quickly moved through a series of management jobs, developing her abilities to work well with people and gaining experience in working with clients in a variety of industries. She worked as a business and information technology (IT) consultant and as a general manager in IBM's global insurance and financial services sector. In the latter position, she established a consulting service for the insurance sector. She also served a term as general manager for IBM's global services in the Americas and played a role in transitioning IBM from its dependence on petroleum-based fuels to using sources of green energy.

In 2002, Rometty was IBM's general manager for sales, marketing, and strategy. In the company's Global Services division, she was one of the key players in finalizing the deal between IBM and American Express whereby IBM became sole manager of American Express's website, network servers, data storage, and support services. The $4 billion, seven-year transaction was the largest such deal ever negotiated by IBM Global Services.

At the same time the American Express deal was being negotiated, Rometty was part of the IBM team engaged in acquiring PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The technology industry was in the middle of its biggest slump since the mid-1980s, and many pundits viewed the $3.5 billion PwC deal as foolishly risky. Rometty was one of the executives charged with promoting and explaining the deal in the media. She proved her value to IBM further when she oversaw the integration of PwC's thirty thousand consulting professionals, who had been working in 160 countries, into the consulting arm of the more structured IBM.

Rometty was promoted to senior vice president of IBM Global Business Services in 2005. She boosted profit at the unit 42 percent in her first two years on the job. Another of her achievements in this office was the development of IBM's cloud computing capacity. In 2009, then-CEO Samuel Palmisano placed her at the head of IBM's sales force. A primary focus for her in this position was investment in emerging markets in China, Russia, and Brazil.

On October 25, 2011, IBM announced that its board of directors had chosen Rometty to succeed Palmisano as president and CEO. On January 1, 2012, Rometty became the ninth person and the first woman to head the venerable company. She also earned a seat on the board. Palmisano continued as chairman until October 1, 2012, when Rometty succeeded him in that role as well.

Rometty's experience in sales, service, and acquisitions, coupled with her part in developing the strategies Palmisano had in place, suggested that she would follow the five-year plan she had helped construct. Steady profit growth saw IBM shares reach their highest level since 1915, when the company went public. Rometty's record attests to her belief in analytics and emerging markets, both of which expanded under her watch. New appointments and changes in in-house communications demonstrated that Rometty would put her own mark on the office; her focus seemed steady and her goals ambitious.

Palmisano stressed that Rometty earned her new office on her own merit and that her gender was irrelevant. However, the spring after Rometty took office, national attention was drawn to an incident that suggested her gender could prove to be an issue. The Augusta National Golf Club, where the Masters Tournament has been played since 1933, has traditionally extended membership to the CEOs of its corporate sponsors: IBM, Exxon Mobil, and AT&T. With Rometty as IBM's CEO, the club was forced to choose between amending its men-only policy and snubbing a sponsor. Membership had been granted to four of Rometty's male predecessors. Augusta National's chairman, Billy Payne, dodged media questions by refusing to comment on the board's private deliberations, while everyone from local residents to President Barack Obama expressed an opinion. Local opinion was divided; the president favored admitting women. Feminists called for a boycott of IBM if the company accepted the insult. Rometty and IBM remained silent. Rometty attended the Masters Tournament and saw clients there, but she wore pink; there was no sign of a green jacket, the traditional color associated with the club. The issue gradually faded from public debate until August 2012, when the club finally opened its doors to women members, inviting former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and financier Darla Moore to join. Rometty joined the club in 2014 as its third female member.

Rometty made it clear that as leader of IBM, she expected to be a risk taker willing to embrace change. She remembered the $16 billion in losses the company suffered between 1991 and 1993, and she was instrumental in the transformation of the company from a maker of hardware into a technology services company with $100 billion in sales in 2010. It was a major, risky change—IBM's acquisition of PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2002—that brought Rometty to the attention of Palmisano and others. Challenge and change would continue to be hallmarks of Rometty's career.

During her tenure at the helm of IBM, Rometty has led the company's transition to big data consulting and platform services. In October 2018, IBM acquired Red Hat for $34 billion in order in order to compete with Microsoft and Amazon's cloud computing solutions. Rometty stepped down as CEO on January 2023 but remained executive chair until the end of the year. In March 2023, she published the book Good Power: Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World. It was named one of the best leadership books by the year by the Big Idea Club and one of the most anticipated books you need to read by Inc. magazine.

Personal Life

Rometty married Mark Anthony Rometty in 1979. The couple maintain homes in White Plains, New York, and Naples, Florida, where Mark works as manager, treasurer, and principal investor in the Bam Oil Company. Friends say that he is an intensely private man who has pursued a career that allowed him the flexibility to support his wife's ascension to the leadership of an international corporation. The Romettys enjoy Broadway plays and scuba diving in their leisure time.

As a participant in IBM's Women in Technology Council and Women's Leadership Council, Rometty has actively promoted diversity within IBM. Beyond her responsibilities at IBM, she is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent, nonpartisan think tank committed to the study of US foreign policy and international affairs. She also serves on the board of overseers and board of managers of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the board of directors of American Productivity and Quality Center, and the board of trustees of Northwestern University. In 2006, the Association of Management Consulting Firms honored her with the Carl S. Sloane Award for Excellence in Management Consulting. In 2010, Northwestern University Alumni Association recognized her with the Alumni Merit Award. She has been named to Fortune magazine's list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business every year since 2005 and took the number one spot for three years in a row, from 2012 to 2014. She was ranked tenth on the Forbes Power Women 2018 list.

Bibliography

Bobrow, Emily. "Ginni Rometty Learned How to Use 'Good Power'." The Wall Street Journal, 3 Mar. 2023, www.wsj.com/articles/ginni-rometty-learned-how-to-use-good-power-5c824ee0. Accessed 8 Mar. 2024.

Crosman, Penny. “IBM Appoints Virginia Rometty First Female CEO.” American Banker. SourceMedia, 25 Oct. 2011. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.

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Mayer, Marissa. “Virginia Rometty.” Time 30 Apr. 2012: 115.

Rometty, Ginni. Good PowerL Leading Positive Change in Our Lives, Work, and World. Harvard Business Review Press, 2023.

Stewart, James B. “Top Aide to a CEO: Her Husband.” New York Times 5 Nov. 2011: B1. Print