Arvind Krishna, IBM Chairman and Chief Executive Who Bet on Hybrid Cloud

Arvind Krishna is the chairman, president and chief executive officer of IBM, the American technology company best known today for hybrid cloud software, consulting, mainframes and quantum computing research. He became chief executive on April 6, 2020, and chairman on January 1, 2021.

He has worked at IBM since 1990, and his whole senior career has been inside the company. His time at the top has been shaped by a sharper focus on hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence, and IBM reported revenue of $67.5 billion for 2025, up 8 percent on the year before.

Education

Krishna earned his undergraduate degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He then completed a PhD in electrical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

IBM says he has received distinguished alumni awards from both institutions.

Career

Krishna joined IBM in 1990. IBM’s biography says his scientific work covered wireless networking, security, systems and databases, and that he helped create an early commercial wireless system and founded the company’s security software business.

He went on to build and lead several of IBM’s data businesses. According to the company, he grew the IBM Information Management business by 50 percent during that period.

He later became general manager of the development and manufacturing organisation within IBM’s Systems and Technology Group, the unit that designed and built the company’s hardware. In that role he led the strategy for data-centric systems and pushed for open, shared technology standards.

From 2015 to 2020 he was director of IBM Research, the company’s global science and technology arm. The division’s work under him covered artificial intelligence, quantum computing, blockchain, cloud platform services and nanotechnology.

In 2017 he took over the IBM Cloud and Cognitive Software unit as senior vice president, a post he held until April 2020. The unit provided the cloud and data platform on which IBM clients built their own systems, and his responsibilities also included IBM Cloud, IBM Security, cognitive applications and IBM Research.

During those years Krishna was a principal architect of IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat, the open source software company. The deal closed on July 9, 2019, at $190 per share in cash, a total equity value of about $34 billion, the largest acquisition in IBM’s history.

On January 30, 2020, the IBM board elected him chief executive officer and a director, effective April 6, 2020. He was the company’s tenth chief executive and succeeded Virginia Rometty, who stayed on as executive chairman until her retirement at the end of that year. The same board meeting named James Whitehurst, then head of Red Hat, as IBM president.

Announcing the choice, Rometty said: “Arvind is the right CEO for the next era at IBM.”

In December 2020 the board elected him chairman, effective January 1, 2021.

Current Roles

• Chairman of the board of directors of IBM, since January 2021.
• President and chief executive officer of IBM, since April 2020.
• Chair of the Executive Committee of the IBM board.
• Director of Northrop Grumman Corporation.
• Vice chair of The Economic Club of New York.

Key Achievements

Red Hat and the hybrid cloud strategy

The Red Hat purchase gave IBM a widely used set of open source tools, including Linux and Kubernetes-based software, that run across public clouds and company data centres. IBM has described the deal as the basis of its hybrid cloud strategy.

• Price: $190 per share in cash.
• Equity value: about $34 billion.
• Completed: July 9, 2019.

The Kyndryl separation

Soon after he became chief executive, Krishna announced the spin-off of IBM’s managed infrastructure services business. The separation was completed on November 3, 2021, and the new company, Kyndryl, began regular trading on the New York Stock Exchange the next day.

IBM holders received one Kyndryl share for every five IBM shares they held. IBM kept 19.9 percent of Kyndryl’s stock at first, with the stated plan of exchanging it within a year.

The watsonx platform

At its Think conference on May 9, 2023, IBM announced watsonx, an AI and data platform made up of three product sets: watsonx.ai, watsonx.data and watsonx.governance. By the end of 2025 IBM said its generative AI book of business stood at more than $12.5 billion.

The HashiCorp acquisition

In April 2024 IBM agreed to buy HashiCorp, a maker of software that automates cloud infrastructure, for $35 per share in cash, an enterprise value of $6.4 billion. The purchase was completed on February 27, 2025.

IBM said the HashiCorp tools would work alongside Red Hat, watsonx and its consulting arm to form one platform for building and running hybrid cloud systems.

• Agreed: April 24, 2024.
• Completed: February 27, 2025.
• Enterprise value: $6.4 billion.

The Company in Numbers

• Revenue: $67.5 billion in 2025, up 8 percent.
• Fourth-quarter revenue: $19.7 billion in the last quarter of 2025, up 12 percent.
• Segment growth in 2025: software up 11 percent, infrastructure up 12 percent, consulting up 2 percent.
• Free cash flow: $14.7 billion in 2025.
• Generative AI book of business: more than $12.5 billion, reported in January 2026.
• Reach: business in more than 175 countries, with about 60 percent of revenue from outside the United States, according to its 2025 annual report.
• Founded: June 16, 1911, as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co., renamed International Business Machines in 1924.

IBM also appears in newer AI industry news. In October 2026 it was named among the companies planning to adopt Nvidia’s Minerva tool for monitoring AI data centres.

Awards and Honours

• Distinguished alumni award, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
• Distinguished alumni award, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In Their Own Words

When the board picked him in January 2020, Krishna said in IBM’s announcement: “I am thrilled and humbled to be elected as the next Chief Executive Officer of IBM, and appreciate the confidence that Ginni and the Board have placed in me.”

Announcing the completed Kyndryl spin-off on November 3, 2021, he said: “The separation of Kyndryl is one of many actions we are taking to sharpen our focus on hybrid cloud and AI, leverage a portfolio clearly focused on technology and consulting, and achieve our growth objectives.”

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