Ginni Rometty

She scrapped a $20B plan and made IBM bet everything on AI.

When Ginni Rometty became CEO of IBM in 2012, she took on one of the toughest jobs in tech… reviving a 100-year-old company in a rapidly changing industry.

Her strategy? Reinvention.

She led IBM’s shift to cloud, AI, and quantum computing, acquiring 65 companies... including the $34B Red Hat deal, the largest in IBM’s history.

She built a $21B hybrid cloud business, steering IBM away from legacy hardware.

She pioneered IBM Watson, bringing AI into healthcare, finance, and cybersecurity.

She created thousands of “new collar” jobs, championing tech education for non-traditional workers through P-TECH, now in 28 countries.

Her leadership wasn’t without controversy.

Under her tenure, IBM faced 24 consecutive quarters of revenue decline, mass layoffs, and criticism over executive bonuses.

Yet, she remained focused on long-term transformation… pushing IBM into high-value, high-growth sectors.

Beyond IBM, Rometty co-founded OneTen, a coalition dedicated to upskilling and hiring one million Black Americans by 2030.

She’s also a board member at JPMorgan Chase and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.