Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat’s former CEO, is becoming our president... Thougts?
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So true...
second fiddle to yet another IBM lifer
@qsg+13hUDcWS, I agree... and knowing how bad Krishna treats everyone, very hard to believe a guy like Whitehurst will take that.
Very unlikely we'll see Whitehurst stay long term. He was top dog of a major tech player. Now, he's just promoted to playing second fiddle to yet another IBM lifer, who very likely will be at the helm until 2030. These guys tend not to like to take a long term demotion to being number 2, behind a company man.
In the acquisitions I've witnessed along the way here at IBM, the old CEOs tend to stay until their contractual time runs out to get their agreed upon payout. Sometimes, it's 12 or 24 months. No idea what Whitehurst's package was. But, in the examples I've seen in the past, you can pretty much guarantee they will be out not a day later than the lockup period. Probably the same for Whitehurst.
The normal tenure of an IBM CEO is 10 years. Ginni messed up and only made it 8. I doubt Mr. Whitehurst will want to wait another 8-10 years to become CEO again. Like the SoftLayer guy, who I believe had been touted in the press as being on the fast track to senior management, someone who has already led a large well known company would probably not want to be a #2 for basically the rest of his working years.
Not likely Whitehurst will wait that long on a sinking ship.
Would not be surprised if Krishna, who is 57, is a short term CEO and hands the reins over to Whitehurst in 2-3 years, assuming Whitehurst sticks around.
Shame. The smartest financial mind in the executive ranks. We needed someone to clean house.
A good move
Should have been appointed CEO