IBM Corp.’s Virginia M. Rometty, who succeeded Samuel J. Palmisano as president and CEO in January, was elected chairman of the board of directors Sept. 25 with Palmisano saying he would be stepping down effective Oct. 1.
Palmisano, who became IBM chief executive in 2002 and chairman of the board in 2003, will serve as senior advisor to the company upon leaving his role on the board until he officially retires Dec. 1.
Rometty, who was appointed to the company’s board in January, succeeded Palmisano as top executive after holding senior leadership positions in IBM’s services, sales, strategy and marketing units.
During Palmisano’s tenure as CEO, IBM transformed its product and services portfolio, exiting commoditizing businesses, including PCs, printers and hard disk drives, and greatly increasing investments in analytics, cloud computing and other high-value businesses and technologies.
IBM created more than $100 billion of total shareholder value during his tenure.
