Ginni Rometty
Ginni Rometty
Virginia Marie "Ginni" Rometty is an American business executive. She is the current Chairwoman, President and CEO of IBM, and the first woman to head the company. Prior to becoming president and CEO in January 2012, she held the positions of Senior Vice President and Group Executive for Sales, Marketing, and Strategy at IBM. She joined IBM as a systems engineer in its Detroit office in 1981...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusiness Executive
Date of Birth29 July 1957
CountryUnited States of America
To me, I learned along the way, you know, culture is behavior. That's all it is; culture is people's behaviors.
Today when I think about diversity, I actually think about the word 'inclusion.' And I think this is a time of great inclusion. It's not men, it's not women alone. Whether it's geographic, it's approach, it's your style, it's your way of learning, the way you want to contribute, it's your age - it is really broad.
For CEOs today, it's all about acheieving growth and efficiency through innovation. It's not about product innovation so much anymore as about innovating business models. process, culture and management.
Growth and comfort do not coexist.
Your value will be not what you know; it will be what you share.
One of the most important things for any leader is to never let anyone else define who you are. And you define who you are. I never think of myself as being a woman CEO of this company. I think of myself as a steward of a great institution.
I learned to always take on things I'd never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist.
Every part of your business will change based on what I consider predictive analytics of the future.
You define yourself by either what your clients want or what you believe they'll need for the future. So: Define yourself by your client, not your competitor.
What has always made IBM a fascinating and compelling place for me is the passion of the company, and its people, to apply technology and scientific thinking to major societal issues.
I think, given who the IBM target company is, I feel our purpose is to be essential to our clients.
So what it means is when you don't believe in the inevitable, it means you don't expect that that's how things have to turn out. You can change them.
As I say to our own team: 'Never protect your past, never define yourself by a single product, and always continue to steward for the long-term. Keep moving towards the future.'
Whatever business you're in - it doesn't matter - it's going to commoditize over time. It's going to devalue. You've got to keep moving it to a higher value.