Rometty Kicks Off 2012 With Leadership Team Changes

Published: January 9, 2012

by Jenny Thomas

IBM's first female CEO in its 100-year history, Ginni Rometty, got right to work after officially taking the helm on January 1, announcing changes to Big Blue's senior leadership team.

The first order of business was to replace herself as the general manager of IBM's sales and marketing group with Bruno Di Leo, who becomes senior vice president, sales and distribution. Di Leo most recently served as the general manager for IBM's Growth Markets Unit, which increased revenues 19 percent last year, with 40 countries growing by double digits. Di Leo began his career at IBM in 1975 as a software engineer, and he has held several leadership roles around the globe, including assignments as general manager for IBM in Northeast Europe and general manager for the company's Latin American operations.

Another key replacement was Frank Kern, who announced he is retiring at the end of January after 35 years with IBM. Kern, who ran IBM's Global Business Services division, which represents about a third of the Global Services group at the company, was a possible contender for the CEO position that eventually went to Rometty and he choose to leave in hopes of landing a CEO gig outside of Big Blue.

Rometty tapped Bridget van Kralingen to replace Kern, and van Kralingen is now the senior vice president in charge of the Global Business Services division. Van Kralingen spent 15 years with Deloitte Consulting in South Africa before joining IBM in 2004. She has run the financial services segment for IBM's GBS division in North America, as well as all of GBS in Northeast Europe, and most recently was charged with sales for all of North America for Big Blue.

Rometty has already outlined her goals for adding $20 billion in new revenue by 2015, which she intends to do by expanding into emerging markets including cloud computing and analytics. To that end, Rometty has created the position of senior vice president for IBM's Growth Markets Unit, and chosen James Bramante to fill that role. Bramante will be based in Shanghai and report to Di Leo. Bramante was CFO at PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting when IBM acquired it for $3.5 billion in July 2002, and most recently was the leader of IBM's consulting services in the United States and Canada.

In her internal memo to IBMers, Rometty had this to say of her new appointees: "Bridget, Jim and Bruno bring long track records of leadership capability and global experience to IBM's senior team. And they are wonderful examples of eminent IBMers--recognized for their expertise within their fields, by peers and clients. I know you all join me in congratulating them. And I express the gratitude of all IBMers to Frank Kern for his lifetime of service to and impact on the IBM company."

Here are the direct reports to Rometty as 2012 gets under way:

• Mike Daniels--Senior vice president and group executive, services
• Jon Iwata--Senior vice president, marketing and communications
• Martin Jetter--Vice president, corporate strategy and general manager, enterprise initiatives
• John Kelly--Senior vice president and director, research
• Mark Loughridge--Senior vice president and CFO, finance and enterprise transformation
• Randy MacDonald--Senior vice president, human resources
• Steve Mills--Senior vice president and group executive, software and systems
• Bob Weber--Senior vice president and general counsel, legal and regulatory affairs

With her management team in place, Rometty is ready to get down to business in 2012. Here's to hoping the IBM i platform is somewhere on her agenda.

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