The following is a chronological list of people who have served as chief executive officer of IBM, an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York.
Thomas John Watson Sr. was an American businessman who was the chairman and CEO of IBM. He oversaw the company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956. Watson developed IBM's management style and corporate culture from John Henry Patterson's training at NCR. He turned the company into a highly effective selling organization, based largely on punched card tabulating machines.
The White House Fellows program is a non-partisan central fellowship established via executive order by President Lyndon B. Johnson in October 1964. The fellowship is one of USA's most prestigious programs for leadership and public service, offering exceptional US Citizens first-hand experience working at the highest levels of the central government. The fellowship was founded based upon a suggestion from John W. Gardner, then the president of Carnegie Corporation and later the sixth secretary of health, education, and welfare.
An IBM Fellow is a position at IBM appointed by the CEO. Typically only four to nine IBM Fellows are appointed each year, in May or June. Fellow is the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achieve.
Louis Vincent Gerstner Jr. is an American businessman, best known for his tenure as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of IBM from April 1993 until 2002, when he retired as CEO in March and chairman in December. He is largely credited with turning IBM's fortunes around.
The President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) is an advisory body to the Executive Office of the President of the United States. According to its self-description, it "provides advice to the President concerning the quality and adequacy of intelligence collection, of analysis and estimates, of counterintelligence, and of other intelligence activities."
Samuel J. "Sam" Palmisano is a former president and the eighth chief executive officer of IBM until January 2012. He also served as chairman of the company until October 1, 2012.
John Roberts Opel was an American computer businessman. He served eleven years as the president of IBM between 1974 and 1985. He was the chief executive officer (CEO) of IBM from 1981 to 1985, and the chairman of the board of directors from 1983 to 1986.
Thomas John Watson Jr. was an American businessman, diplomat, Army Air Forces pilot, and philanthropist. The son of IBM Corporation founder Thomas J. Watson, he was the second IBM president (1952–71), the 11th national president of the Boy Scouts of America (1964–68), and the 16th United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1979–81). He received many honors during his lifetime, including being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Fortune called him "the greatest capitalist in history" and Time listed him as one of "100 most influential people of the 20th century".
John Fellows Akers was an American businessman. He was president (1983–1989), chief executive officer (1985–1993) and chairman (1986–1993) of IBM.
Thomas Vincent Learson was IBM's chairman and chief executive officer from June 1971 through January 1973. He was succeeded by Frank T. Cary. Both the previous chairman Thomas Watson Jr. and senior project manager Fred Brooks regarded Learson as the driving force behind the IBM System/360 project, which was huge and risky but whose success ensured IBM's dominance of the mainframe computer market.
International Business Machines (IBM) is a multinational corporation specializing in computer technology and information technology consulting. Headquartered in Armonk, New York, the company originated from the amalgamation of various enterprises dedicated to automating routine business transactions, notably pioneering punched card-based data tabulating machines and time clocks. In 1911, these entities were unified under the umbrella of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR).
The Judicial Conference of the United States, formerly known as the Conference of Senior Circuit Judges, was created by the United States Congress in 1922 with the principal objective of framing policy guidelines for administration of judicial courts in the United States. The Conference derives its authority from 28 U.S.C. § 331, which states that it is headed by the chief justice of the United States and consists of the chief justice, the chief judge of each court of appeals federal regional circuit, a district court judge from various federal judicial districts, and the chief judge of the United States Court of International Trade.
Virginia "Ginni" Rometty is an American business executive who was executive chairman of IBM after stepping down as CEO on April 1, 2020. She was previously chairman, president and CEO of IBM, becoming the first woman to head the company. She retired from IBM on December 31, 2020, after a near-40 year career there. Before becoming president and CEO in January 2012, she first joined IBM as a systems engineer in 1981 and subsequently headed global sales, marketing, and strategy.
The Business Council is a nonpartisan organization of business leaders headquartered in Washington, D.C. It holds meetings several times a year for high-level policy discussions.
International Business Machines Corporation, nicknamed Big Blue, is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York and present in over 175 countries. IBM is the largest industrial research organization in the world, with 19 research facilities across a dozen countries, having held the record for most annual U.S. patents generated by a business for 29 consecutive years from 1993 to 2021.
Arvind Krishna is an Indian-American business executive, and the chairman and CEO of IBM. He has been CEO of IBM since April 2020 and chairman since January 2021. Krishna began his career at IBM in 1990, at its Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and was promoted to senior vice president in 2015, managing IBM Cloud & Cognitive Software and IBM Research divisions. He was a principal architect of the acquisition of Red Hat, the largest acquisition in the company’s history.
