Thread regarding IBM layoffs

My first day as CEO - our journey together

Arvind's letter. Some of the leadership changes are interesting:

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

Bridget van Kralingen will become Senior Vice President of Global Markets. In this role, she will succeed Martin Schroeter, who has elected to retire after 28 years with IBM, and will continue to lead global industries and integrated accounts. Bridget brings a stellar industry reputation and world-class client engagement skills to this role. She will focus on simplifying our go-to-market strategies across all business units as well as strengthening IBM’s client-centric culture.

Paul Cormier will become the CEO of Red Hat. Paul is a long-standing Red Hatter. His deep engineering skills, product expertise and industry vision make him the right leader to fuel Red Hat’s continued technology innovation and growth.

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.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-first-day-ceo-our-journey-together-arvind-krishna

by Anonymous
| 3814 views | | 8 replies (last April 9, 2020) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+14lwXrOX
Comment! It's anonymous!

8 replies (most recent on top)

His performance on CNBC was quite pathetic... he is definitely not of the CEO caliber.

IBM will not look good with him.

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @3ajc+14lwXrOX

In the first few minutes of his "first CEO broadcast" he gushed over Ginni's leadership and thanked her for positioning IBM for future growth. So he's either an id–t or a liar. Either way I don't want to hear any more from him.

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @2bly+14lwXrOX

Thank you Arvind. I will drink the Kool-Aid along with everyone else at IBM. LOL

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @2nzp+14lwXrOX

I can’t be the only person who read his note and realized that this man has absolutely no clue about setting a company’s strategic direction. Very disconnected from where the industry is heading. I’m shocked that this is who they picked as replacement CEO.

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @2tfl+14lwXrOX

ah yes, multiple times I can recall in Westford and Boston when some news would come in and you'd hear crashing and cussing as someone pitched a major hissy fit in the new wing of the Red Hat building. (there's a buzz lightyear cutout near his office). literally....screaming "who said this? who did this?!? I want their head!" and then managers would scurry to the bathroom to text their teams to keep their heads low. Meritocracy is dead.

Now we have him as the president of the hat club. congratulations! (and I'm sorry we have to continue this. I was hoping that he'd be taking his golden parachute and moving on to save us. Well....time to sharpen the guillotine I suppose.)

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @qvd+14lwXrOX

tl;dr - a few execs shuffled their roles.

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @ntq+14lwXrOX

This is an out with the old, and in with the new. Nuking Schroeter was a big tell to the existing Exec team, “get on board, or leave”. NOTE the get on board is clearly focused around Enterprise (fortune 1000), Redhat, and a Linux strategy, catering to where IBM has clear advantage (financial, insurance, think system Z) You didn’t see a peep about services, but the board clearly Stated they wanted a focused approach on aligning services to cater to the fortune 1000. That means we should expect IBM to Exit a pile of services that don’t align with IBM anymore. That doesn’t necessarily mean layoffs, but rather dumping businesses that IBM shouldn’t be in anymore due to shifting marketplaces and costs. I would expect IBM to Incent 35k-45k worth of folks to leave (retire, lay-off, Fire, PIP), with an additional selloff of another 100k worth of Non-strategic low margin business

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @bdk+14lwXrOX

Cannot remember the last time when there was an Important Announcement that involved something else than the execs reshuffling their positions.
Isn't running a company supposed to also contain some, erm..., work, with goals and tangible outputs? Strategy? Culture? Ideas?

I don't really care which of the top few takes which piece of the cake. I care more about the cake itself.

by Anonymous
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Post ID: @xsy+14lwXrOX

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