Ginni Rometty
Ginni Rometty
Virginia Marie "Ginni" Rometty is an American business executive. She is the current Chairwoman, President and CEO of IBM, and the first woman to head the company. Prior to becoming president and CEO in January 2012, she held the positions of Senior Vice President and Group Executive for Sales, Marketing, and Strategy at IBM. She joined IBM as a systems engineer in its Detroit office in 1981...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusiness Executive
Date of Birth29 July 1957
CountryUnited States of America
I've been head of strategy at IBM and together with my colleagues built our five-year plan. My priorities are going to be to continue to execute on that.
Embracing new ways of managing key business processes, such as procurement and accounts payable, allows leading companies like Colgate to uncover significant new sources of value within their operations. We're pleased to help Colgate move its business forward using our organization's expertise in procurement innovation coupled with IBM's well established group of supply chain and accounting professionals.
I've made lots of mistakes. Probably the worst one - I would say they tie. It's either when I didn't move fast enough on something, or I didn't take a big enough risk.
We're about to scale something now that couldn't have been scaled before.
Every day I get to 'Think' and work on everything from digitizing electric grids so they can accommodate renewable energy and enable mass adoption of electric cars, helping major cities reduce congestion and pollution, to developing new micro-finance programs that help tiny businesses get started in markets such as Brazil, India, Africa.
We have started something called the Corporate Services Corps. Now, it was modeled after the Peace Corps from long ago, the 1960s. And the idea was in this modern day and age, how do you get IBM'ers around the world to be global citizens? You know, globally aware, contribute, understand how to work in that environment, but do it on scale.
Any city has to give some thought to its ambition and brand in order to set sustainability goals.
I've been head of strategy at IBM and together with my colleagues built our five-year plan. My priorities are going to be to continue to execute on that.
And the reason I came to IBM was I think - I always say at a really early age, I learned you've got to be passionate about what you do. No matter what it is, you put too much, your heart and soul in it, you have to be passionate about it. You make too many sacrifices.
I think 'Actions speak louder than words' is one thing, I think, I always took from my mom. And to this day, I think about that in everything I do.
If you're clear on what you believe, you have a great foundation to go make a market.
You have to stick up for what you believe in. And that, to me, is the biggest thing you can do about driving inclusion.
Big data is indeed a buzzword but it is one that is frankly under-hyped.
I always say, you know, if I sit here and close my eyes and say, 'When did I learn the most in my life, in my career?' It'll always be when I close them and everything I think of is when I took a risk. It's when I think I learned the most.