IBM names Virginia Rometty new CEO

IBM today named Virginia Rometty as its CEO in waiting. Rometty, currently the companys top sales executive, will take the reins January 1, 2012, from Sam Palmisano who will have reached IBMs mandatory retirement age of 60.

Rometty, 54, who will be the first female CEO in IBMs 100-year history, has a strong grounding both in sales and in IT services, an area where IBM has focused much of its effort over the past few years. She is also expected to keep driving Palmisanos cloud computing agenda which also drives a lot of services business for the Armonk, N.Y. computing giant.

A 30-year IBM, veteran, Rometty is currently SVP and group executive of IBMs Sales, Marketing and Strategy. Previously she was SVP of IBM Global Business Services where she directed IBMs acquisition and integration of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting in 2002. It was in that role that Rometty reportedly caught Palmisanos attention.

According to IBMs statement:

As global sales leader for IBM, Ms. Rometty, 54, is accountable for revenue, profit, and client satisfaction in the 170 global markets in which IBM does business. She is responsible for IBMs worldwide results, which exceeded $99 billion in 2010. She also is responsible for leading IBMs global strategy, marketing and communications functions. Previously, Ms. Rometty was senior vice president of IBM Global Business Services. In that role, she led the successful integration of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting the largest acquisition in professional services history, building a global team of more than 100,000 business cons! ultants and services experts.

Some had expected that Steve Mills, SVP of IBMs $40 billion Software Group, might get the nod, but age may be a factor there. Other contenders were reportedly Michael Daniels, head of global services and Rodney Adkins, SVP for hardware.

Palmisano, who became CEO in 2002 after Louis Gerstner left, will stay on as chairman, according to an IBM statement. There had been considerable speculation that Palmisano would stay on past the retirement age.

Palmisano is credited for continuingIBMs sometimes controversial exit from thin-margin businesses including PCs, printers and disk drives and refocusing the company on more profitable software and services.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.