The IBM board of directors has elected Arvind Krishna chairman of the board, effective January 1, 2021.
Krishna, who is IBM’s chief executive officer and a member of the board, succeeds IBM executive chairman Virginia M. Rometty, who is retiring on December 31, 2020, as the company previously announced in January of this year.
Rometty became IBM’s chairman, chief executive officer and president in 2012.
Krishna, 58, was elected IBM’s 10th CEO in January, and assumed the position on April 6, 2020 after holding numerous senior leadership positions in the company, most recently as IBM senior vice president for cloud and cognitive software, where he was a principal architect of the company’s acquisition of Red Hat.
Recently, Krishna announced the spin-off of IBM’s $19 billion Managed Infrastructure Services business, to be completed in 2021, which will create two industry-leading companies and enable IBM to focus on its leading open Hybrid Cloud and Artificial Intelligence Platform. He joined IBM in 1990 and became a director of the company in April.