This appointment was expected, "Ginni" Rometty, 54, was in effect for several months figure of favorite for the race for the post of CEO.
This woman came in 1981 at IBM is currently under the direct authority of Samuel Palmisano, in charge of sales, marketing and strategy. It should take office on 1 January, the date from which Samuel Palmisano will no longer be the chairman of the board of directors.
"Never stop reinventing IBM"
"I do not expect short-term change," said Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester Research. "It's a long prepared evolution" and "IBM trains its leaders with great care."
"The strategy and business model of IBM are good," he also commented Virginia Rometty, without announcing immobility. "Sam has taught us, above all, that one should never stop reinventing IBM," she said.
Samuel Palmisano is executive director since 2002 and CEO since 2003. He has led the sale in 2005 of the activity of personal computers sold in China's Lenovo.
Under his leadership, IBM, which celebrated its centenary in June, has become one of the largest U.S. companies by market capitalization, to 212.8 billion dollars, very close to Microsoft ($ 225 billion), well beyond Apple (360 billion).
"One of the strongest leaders of IBM"
Today the group performs Armonk turnover (99.9 billion dollars in 2010) in large mainframes, storage facilities and services, without neglecting the operations of the computer prestige as champion 'Big Blue chess computer in 1997 and Watson, who won this year's game show Jeopardy.
Virginia Rometty, for its part is credited to have spearheaded the integration of IBM Audit Group PriceWaterhouseCoopers, purchased in 2003.
"Strategic thinking long-term Ginni and attention to customers will see in our growth initiatives, from cloud computing and analytical tools to the marketing of [supercomputer] Watson," argued Samuel Palmisano , paying tribute to Virginia Rometty as "the ideal CEO to bring IBM into its second century" of existence.
"We have often met with Ms. Rometty in his previous position, and have seen develop into one of the strongest leaders of IBM," said for his part Ben Reitzes, an analyst at Barclays Capital.
"IBM seems to be better than others"
With this appointment Virginia Rometty into the closed circle of women heads of very large U.S. companies. One of the main competitors of IBM, Hewlett-Packard, where the recent general managers were forced to leave for scandals or poor performance, is also headed by a woman: Meg Whitman, former head of e-commerce site eBay, has taken head in September. Another technology company, Xerox, owned by Ursula Burns.
Asked about the apparent paradox of a woman to lead IBM, a group long derided for its conformity, Frank Gillett noted that on the contrary, even if "IBM does not reflect the diversity of the country", "IBM seems to do better than others in this field. "
The Virginia Rometty rivals for the position were responsible for the services business, Michael Daniels, and that the activity of the material, Rodney Adkins, who is black.
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