Executive Chairman & CEO, IBM
About The Leader
About The Leader
§ Virginia Marie "Ginni" Rometty (born July 29, 1957) was CEO of IBM for eight years up to 2020 and was the first woman leader of the company. During her tenure, some of her primary areas of interest were clould computing, cognitive computing, and analytics
She worked up the ladder at IBM. During a 40-year career at the company, she began as a systems engineer in the early 1980s and then worked in marketing, strategy, and sales.
Within IBM, she was admired for her negotiations between IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers IT consulting as well as integrating the two companies after IBM’s acquisition of the consulting business.
Her Purpose
Rometty felt deeply that new technology developments had the ability to change human lives & leaders needed to ensure that these technologies are used in right way to solve the key needs of human life.
Rometty placed a lot of importance on thinking through ethical issues of new technology, knowing that new tech can bring brings on new ethical problems and challenges as its scales and expanded through society. She also emphasized expanding training and development opportunities for people of diverse backgrounds, connecting educational opportunities to New Collar jobs. She continued her ethics-centered leadership in her work on the influential Business Roundtable to expand business’s interest in the welfare of many stakeholders, not just the shareholders of a corporation.
Under her leadership, IBM received the Catalyst Award in recognition for the company’s efforts to have more diversity in its ranks. For instance, one program for women created “returnships” – which combined extended parental leave with policies to facilitate women returning into the workforce. IBM is the only tech company to been earned a Catalyst Award.
Case for Change
Case for Change
Every generation gets an opportunity to impact and shape the way things are done and the current generation has the opportunity to do that too.
Growth Gap
Growth Gap
There is tremendous potential for the new technologies of cloud computing... big data, mobility and artificial intelligence which remains untapped. While many of these technologies are considered to potentially disrupt communities and replace individual labor, these should be considered for augmenting the current capabilities than replacing them completely
Investment Portfolio
Investment Portfolio
Companies need to invest in these technologies that would augment human capabilities and drive new high-impact use cases. But like with any other technology the way it is utilized and harnessed is extremely important. Leaders should remain ethical and lead their way through transparency and inclusion to truly take advantage of the things technologies have to offer
Her Leadership Qualities
Her Leadership Qualities
Rometty believed that a leader needs to be self-aware, passionate, socially responsible, and situationally aware to create long-term sustainable impact for the community and organization.
Passion & Growth
Passion & Growth
Rometty believed that it is important for leaders to be really passionate about what they do and then apply it well to drive extraordinary results. She further believed that, for a leader, the learning never ends. Once a leader knows about what he or she is passionate about, the leader needs to keep learning and evolving to get better.
Key Actions
Key Actions
Rometty started her career at General Motors because whe won a GM scholarship for college. While at GM, she realized that she was not at all interested in cars and trucks; instead, she was enthusiastic to learn more about how technology could impact various industries and started pursing a career towards digital tools and trends.
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors
Passion & Motivation
Learning
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
Rometty believed that passionate individuals find opportunities to learn and drive growth in the organization.
She understood that people might often find themselves in jobs and situations where they are not completely comfortable. By finding tasks within those jobs that fuel their passions, employees can really improve their performance and their personal brand.
Supporting Teams
Supporting Teams
Rometty believed that each generation has the opportunity to change the dynamics of the company. So for leaders, it is imperative to understand market shifts and reposition their vision to the areas which add maximum impact and drive maximum value.
Key Actions
Key Actions
Once she took over as the CEO of IBM, she decided to invest in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and big data. She went on to acquire one of the biggest cloud computing companies and shut down a number of non-performing businesses
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors
Big & Bold Vision
Market shifts & changing trends
Risks & stretched targets
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
Rometty understood that effective strategy requires that leaders be self-aware of what they need to do and what they won't do.
She understood that leaders need to to be aware of important market and consumer shifts and then take the appropriate bets on navigating leader's vision as well as the organization's vision to adapt to these shifts to ensure long-term sustainable growth.
Social Responsability
Social Responsability
Rometty believes that the role of technologies like cloud computing, mobility and big data have together resulted in the ability to help humans augment their capabilities and do what they weren't able to do before. She believes that when leaders introduce powerful technologies into the world that they have a huge responsibility to decide on how they are used.
Key Actions
Key Actions
Rometty has extensively invested in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and big data technologies at IBM. She built the Watson AI engine which would use anonymous data and share insights with clients. IBM has a strong policy that advocates the ethical use of their advanced digital systems for solving the most pressing needs concerning education, finance & healthcare around the world.
Leadership Behaviors
Leadership Behaviors
Responsible Leadership
Wise application of technology
Community well being
Lesson Learned
Lesson Learned
Rometty believes that transparency is another important policy that would ensure that AI advances remain within ethical boundaries that instill long-term trust.
She believes that businesses need to remain open about disclosing the data they use, the business models they pursue, and how the business model be utilized as well as its impact.
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