Beyond Whitehurst Departure, IBM’s Massive Transformation is Underway

In this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast, my colleague Steven Dickens and I took a dive into the goings on at IBM this past week. Obviously, the big news coming out of IBM with an  announcement late in the day on Friday last, was the news of IBM president and former Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst stepping down. This came as a surprise to many, as Jim was largely viewed throughout the industry as a likely successor to IBM CEO Arvind Krishna within a few years. The IBM board, and Krishna, however, had other plans and Krishna is clearly not at all close to done with what he aims to accomplish at IBM. In a Barrons’ interview this week, Whitehurst shared that he’s not done building things and that he wants another chance to be a CEO again. He realized, when IBM’s board of directors chose Krishna as chair as well as CEO earlier this year, that wasn’t going to happen at IBM. Whitehurst is a talented leader and there is sure to be no shortage of companies interested in scooping him up. This will be fantastic to watch play out. My colleague, Steven Dickens, shared thoughts based on feedback he’s gotten from former colleagues at IBM, who were also fairly surprised by this news. We discussed the potential impact of this change on the Red Hat employees and community, who are a pretty tight group, and of course very supportive of Whitehurst. IBM shares are down 5% since the company announced Whitehurst’s departure, and it’s clear that the longtime Red Hat CEO is incredibly valued by the investor community – and the tech community. Massive Transformation Underway at IBM We moved on from the Whitehurst conversation and tackled some of the many other changes happening inside IBM. The company is clearly undertaking some massive transformation, focused on regaining market relevance and of course growing revenues. And massive transformation most often requires some significant changes. We also discussed some of the many changes afoot at IBM that Steven has some insider experience with, including the company’s transformation of the marketing function under new CMO Carla Piñeyro Sublett and the nuances of some of those changes, along with an overview of the somewhat radical transformation IBM’s IT team is undergoing under Kathryn Guarini, the company’s new CIO.