IBM announced that Arvind Krishna, who heads the company's cloud unit, will replace Ginni Rometty as CEO in April.
Why it matters: The move comes as a surprise, with Rometty having just recently held court in Davos, unveiling a new call for targeted AI regulation.
- The company also named James Whitehurst, CEO of recently acquired Red Hat, to be IBM's president, effective in April.
- Rometty, who has spent 40 years at IBM and 8 years as CEO, will serve as executive chairman until year's end, and then retire.
Between the lines: Krishna, a 30-year IBM veteran, was a key driver of the Red Hat acquisition and has been leading the company's effort to grow its position in cloud computing, where Microsoft, Amazon and Google have been the leaders.
During Rometty's tenure, IBM forged close ties with the Trump Administration, acquired 65 companies (most notably Red Hat) and pushed the company into quantum computing and other areas.
