Shakeup Among Top iSeries Marketing and Sales Execs

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

At press time last week, we caught wind of some big changes in the IBM marketing and sales organizations related to the iSeries product line. The word on the street says Kim Stevenson, vice president of iSeries marketing operations, put in her last day of work on the job on Friday. We had also heard that John Guido, head of iSeries Sales in the Americas region, has left that job. Sources at IBM confirmed that these changes have indeed taken place.

Stevenson was appointed to the top marketing position in January 2001, shortly after Buell Duncan took over as general manager of the Mid-Market Server Division, within IBM's Server Group marketing and development organization. (Duncan, you'll remember, took over that GM job just after the October 2000 fall COMMON trade show, succeeding Tom Jarosh.) Stevenson was responsible for iSeries product and customer set marketing, customer satisfaction, and quality, according to her official IBM biography. Before that, she was vice president of finance for the Mid-Market Server organization and was in charge of financial operations, supply and demand planning, budgeting, and pricing for the iSeries organization. Stevenson has held several financial management positions at Big Blue, including director of business analysis for IBM's Microelectronics Division and controller for IBM's software manufacturing unit--part of the Software Group--in Boulder, Colorado. She joined IBM in 1985, after an accounting intern assignment in IBM's Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, facilities.

Exactly why Stevenson left is unclear, but sources say that she will be taking a position at Electronic Data Systems, the Plano, Texas, IT services giant, which is in the same league as IBM's powerful Global Services unit. Stevenson did not return my phone calls, and an IBM spokesperson said that she will not grant interviews until she arrives at her new job at EDS. The rumor I hear is that she will in some way be associated with EDS operations as they pertain to IBM's zSeries mainframe line, which accounts for a big portion of the facilities management, outsourcing, systems integration, and consulting contracts that EDS takes down each year.

IBM sources say that no replacement for Stevenson has been named, but the rumor mill is already buzzing over the possibilities. One person whose name popped up was Stephanie Joy, who apparently has been a part of the iSeries marketing effort for years, and, of course, some people are talking about Malcolm Haines, the former self-described "minister of propaganda" and iSeries evangelist, returning to the iSeries marketing team in the wake of Stevenson's departure.

Very little is known about the circumstances surrounding Guido's exit from the top sales job for the iSeries organization in the Americas region, which includes the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. All our IBM sources could say for certain is that Guido is still working at IBM, perhaps in server sales, perhaps not. (IBMers move from division to division as part of their cross-training, and such moves are commonplace.) What is also not known is the effect both of these executive changes will have on the iSeries organization.

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