Arvind Krishna as the new CEO of IBM announces several leadership changes in a letter on his first day

Arvind Krishna takes over as CEO of IBM this morning. He is an accomplished technologist also co-authored 15 patents. His life's new challenge is to lead the 109-year-old company into a new era of growth after a long period of stagnation in revenues and earnings. On his first day, he has written a letter to his fellow IBMers.

He announced a few leadership changes as well. These are:

1. Jim Whitehurst, in his new role as President, will head IBM Strategy as well as the Cloud and Cognitive Software unit. He will oversee the foundational technologies that are driving digital transformation. Jim brings his extensive leadership experience, strategic thinking and operational expertise.

Jim Whitehurst is the current President at IBM and chair of the board at Red Hat. He previously was the Chief Executive Officer at Red Hat and Chief Operating Officer at Delta Air Lines. Before working at Delta in 2001, he served as Vice President and Director of the Boston Consulting Group and held various management roles at its Chicago, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Atlanta offices.

2. Bridget van Kralingen will become Senior Vice President of Global Markets. She will succeed Martin Schroeter. Martin has elected to retire after 28 years with IBM. She will continue to lead global industries and integrated accounts from her prior role. Bridget has an industry reputation and client engagement skills for this role. She will focus on simplifying the go-to-market strategies across all business units. She will also be responsible for IBM’s client-centric culture.

Bridget van Kralingen served as Senior Vice President of IBM Global Industry Platforms in New York City. Van Kralingen was in the Fortune's 50 Most Powerful Women list for five consecutive years from 2011 to 2015.

3. Paul Cormier will become the CEO of Red Hat. He will be succeeding Jim Whitehurst. He is a dedicated engineer, product expert and industry visionary. Krishna thinks his ability make him the right leader to fuel Red Hat’s continued technology innovation and growth.

Paul has been a longtime Red Hat executive and open hybrid cloud visionary. Cormier previously served as Red Hat’s president of Products and Technologies. Since his joining in 2001, Cormier has driven more than 25 acquisitions at Red Hat.

4. Howard Boville will join IBM from Bank of America on May 1st to become Senior Vice President of Cloud Platform, overseeing the IBM Cloud. He is a proven strategist and expert in the realm of cloud and has played a critical role in developing the financial services ready public cloud with IBM.

Howard was a CTO in Bank of America. He was also the Managing Director within the Technology and Infrastructure group. He was responsible for designing, building and running the firms Cloud Services.

In Arvind Krishna's letter

The key highlights of the letter were:

1. Arvind Krishna first and foremost talked about the current pandemic that has taken over the world. He wishes that all his IBMers physical and mental well being. In the same line, he also mentioned that he is impressed to see how fast so many IBMers have adapted to new ways of working, including virtual working and in new settings.

2. He mentioned that IBM is a backbone to one of the most critical systems in the world. These include helping banks run credit card transactions, businesses run supply chains, telcos connect customers, healthcare providers improve patient care, and companies and cities tackle cyberthreats.

3. Krishna looks on AI and Hybrid cloud as the future of IBM. Since the company has built three platforms- mainframe, services, and middleware- he aims that the company builds up a fourth platform- the hybrid cloud.

Arvind Krishna said that IBM aims to build an "essential, ubiquitous hybrid cloud platform" that the clients can rely on. He aims that the platform should last longer than others and do critical works easily. The platform should be cost-effective and flexible. Since IBM's hybrid cloud platform will be coupled with expertise, he looks forward on a large clientele base.

4. Some specific actions will include turning the Hybrid Cloud to AI; winning the architectural battle in Cloud and working to make Red Hat OpenShift the default choice for hybrid cloud.

Lastly, he thanked his fellow IBMers and wished them growth. His letter can be read on his LinkedIn profile.