Jim Whitehurst steps down as IBM president after just 14 months

[Shawn Knight]

What just happened? IBM has announced a series of leadership changes that’ll impact the company effective immediately. The biggest revelation is the departure of Jim Whitehurst as IBM president after just 14 months on the job.

Whitehurst got involved with Big Blue in late 2018 when it was announced that IBM would be acquiring Red Hat, where Whitehurst had served as CEO since 2007, for $34 billion. The deal was wrapped up the following year, and in early 2020 it was revealed that Whitehurst would be appointed president of IBM in April.

IBM on Friday said the executive, who previously served as chief operating officer for Delta Air Lines, has decided to step down but will still serve as a senior advisor to CEO Arvind Krishna moving forward. No reason was given for the sudden change, and IBM didn’t announce a replacement.

Jim Whitehurst. Photo courtesy David Morris, Bloomberg.

In related news, IBM also announced that Bridget van Kralingen has decided to step down from her position as senior vice president of global markets. She is sticking around as SVP of special projects for a period of one year, and will retire after that. Rob Thomas will replace van Kralingen as SVP of global markets, we’re told.

IBM isn't the only tech company making major leadership changes. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO of the e-commerce giant on Monday, July 5. He is being replaced by AWS boss Andy Jassy.

Masthead credit: Laborant

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/90292-jim-whitehurst-steps-down-ibm-president-after-14.html

 

[VariableSpike]

IBM will of course tell everyone that this has nothing to do with their entire mail system breaking at the end of a financial quarter, what a shambles of a company......

 

[VitalyT]

IBM today is nothing but a shadow of its former self - from the words of a friend of mine who worked there for nearly 20 years. I guess there are a lot of corporations today that are just like it, straggling to justify its own existence, after the company's founders are long gone, taking their vision for the company along to the grave.

 

[J Oelschl]

So Ginny Rommety runs the company into the ground and they let her languish for 7 years and her only accomplishment was divesting things and declining revenues YoY while this new guy gets the boot after only 14 months? How tragic, one of the greatest companies ever (along with HP) destroyed after thriving for 80+ years. They used to consistently top the boards on patents filed etc. yearly. They used to innovate. Now these "leaders" are so lazy they only know how to divest and sell out to be taken over versus competing. These new "leaders" are a disgrace.