Who is Arvind Krishna, new Indian-origin CEO of American tech giant IBM?

It was a proud day for India when another Indian-American, Arvind Krishna, was elected as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of American IT giant IBM. The 57-year-old business and tech executive completed his graduation from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, in 1985 and finished his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1990.

Krishna joined IBM in 1990 and has served in different roles at the multi-national company for 30 years, including Director of Research and Head of the cloud and cognitive software. He has now joined the elite league of Indian-origin CEOs of American companies, including Satya Nadella of Microsoft Corp, Sundar Pichai of Google, Shantanu Narayen of Adobe, and Ajay Banga of MasterCard.

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Krishna has been working for the company as IBM Senior Vice President for Cloud and Cognitive Software and was reportedly a principal architect behind the acquisition of Red Hat. He has been the recipient of distinguished alumni awards from IIT-K and the University of Illinois. Krishna also co-authored 15 patents and has been the editor of IEEE and ACM journals.

'Brilliant technologist'

Calling Krishna ‘right CEO for the next era at IBM’, former CEO Ginni Rometty said that he is a brilliant technologist who has played a significant role in developing our key technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum computing and blockchain.

“Arvind has built an outstanding track record of bold transformations and proven business results and is an authentic, values-driven leader.  He is well-positioned to lead IBM and its clients into the cloud and cognitive era,” said Rometty in a statement.

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Anand Mahindra, billionaire businessman and the chairman of Mahindra Group, took to Twitter to call it a  ‘stunning endorsement’ of the managerial capabilities of Indian-origin managers. Mentioning the names of Nadella, Pichai, Narayen and Krishna, CEOs running four US tech giants, Mahindra said that it places a responsibility on Indian managers to demonstrate that they can take Indian companies to the top as well.

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