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Who is Arvind Krishna
Indian-origin Arvind Krishna is the CEO-elect of IBM. He will take charge on April 6, 2020. A business-savvy technologist, Krishna joined IBM in 1990 and was the principal architect of the firm's purchase of Red Hat. Krishna's appointment adds to the growing list of Indian-origin executives at the helm of some of the biggest multinational companies. He joins Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen as India-born heads of US tech groups.
Arvind Krishna's career as a technologist
Arvind Krishna joined the American IT giant IBM in 1990, and since then has held executive, product management, and technical research positions. Prior to being elected CEO of IMB by the board of directors, Krishna was Senior Vice President for Cloud and Cognitive Software. His role included setting the platform technical strategy, industry alliances, and defining key growth opportunities for IBM software.
From December 1990 till 2009, he served as the director of Internet infrastructure and computing utilities research at IBM’s T J Watson Research Center. He also served as the vice president of provisioning and security development for Tivoli Software within IBM’s Software Group where he was responsible for setting the technical strategy for IBM’s security/identity middleware, provisioning and orchestration middleware, and delivering the products in support of the strategy.
Krishna's responsibilities at IBM prior to his appointment as CEO
Arvind Krishna is in-charge of IBM Cloud, IBM Security and Cognitive Applications business, and IBM Research. He guides IBM's overall strategy in core and emerging technologies including AI, cloud platform services, data-driven solutions, quantum computing, blockchain and nanotechnology. He leads the organisation of approximately 3,000 scientists and technologists located at 12 labs on six continents.
Arvind Krishna's achievements
While announcing Arvind Krishna's appointment as CEO on January 31, 2020, Rometty said Krishna is a brilliant technologist who has played a significant role in developing our key technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum computing and blockchain. As a leader, he is able to win today while building the business of tomorrow.
Krishna is credited for leading the largest acquisition in IBM's history. Krishna was a chief planner of the $34 billion acquisition of open-source software vendor Red Hat.
He has a track record of bold transformations and proven business results. His IBM colleagues describe him as an authentic, values-driven leader.
Arvind Krishna is the co-author of 15 patents, has been the editor of IEEE and ACM journals, and has published extensively in technical conferences and journals. He has received distinguished alumni awards from IIT Kanpur and the University of Illinois.
Arvind Krishna's education
Arvind Krishna has BE in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Latest Updates on Arvind Krishna
Hiring in back-office functions - such as human resources - will be suspended or slowed, Krishna said in an interview
The multinational technology corporation IBM has suspended all its business in Russia due to the conflict in Ukraine, CEO Arvind Krishna said
The Uttar Pradesh chief minister also termed the Shaheen Bagh protest a "malicious attempt to disturb peace and normal life"
Krishna said IBM has such talented people and technology that we can bring together to help our clients solve their toughest problems
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IBM is a late entrant to the business of cloud services, a segment now dominated by Amazon and Microsoft.