IBM CEO Ginni Rometty has three rules she follows in her goal to take the old-school company through a massive cultural transformation: 1) Don’t protect the past, 2) Never be defined by your product and 3) Always transform yourself. In Fortune’s October 6th issue, Senior Writer Michal Lev-Ram explores how despite IBM’s revenues shrinking nine quarters in a row now, nearly everyone agrees that Rometty is the right leader for the company. “She has this unique ability to make you comfortable in the change while still being uncomfortable,” says John Kelly, senior vice president of IBM Research. “It’s really hard to describe.” Her plan? Get IBM’s massive employee base to move faster than ever and invest in high-growth area like mobile, cloud and big data analytics.
During the reporting process, Lev-Ram learned loads about IBM and Rometty. Here are 5 interesting points that were left out of her feature:
1. IBM has a lot of old blood. But in April 2014 Rometty brought in some fresh talent: Ken Keverian, now SVP of corporate strategy at Big Blue, is a highly respected former senior partner from the Boston Consulting Group. In his new role, he is tasked with “developing strategies that are linked to execution plans for a new era of computing, new markets and new clients.” That’s a whole lot of newness in a company whose executive team has gone largely unchanged in recent years.
2. Rometty got “help” from other powerful women. It may be ancient history, but Rometty’s successful integration of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting back in 2002 (which played a big role in her eventual ascent to the top job at IBM) was set in motion by Carly Fiorina, then CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Fiorina blundered her own attempted acquisition of the large consulting group, but it paved the way for Rometty to snap up and assimilate PwC. The rest really is history—IBM’s $57 billion global services unit is now its biggest revenue generator.
3. Rometty’s Watson love runs deep. On the day the computing system beat its opponents on Jeopardy! (back in 2011), she knew the technology could play a big part in IBM’s future. “I remember coming home and saying to my husband, ‘I think I just witnessed some piece of history,'” she told Fortune. “It was then that I knew we had something, that this would be an era unlike any eras before it.” Of course, Watson’s ultimate success is still TBD, but Rometty has followed through her commitment to the uber-smart system with a $1 billion investment towards development and commercialization.
4. Rometty has long viewed Africa as the next frontier. Back in 2011, as SVP in charge of corporate strategy, she commissioned a team of 20 company leaders to spend several months devising a plan for IBM’s growth on the continent. In addition to opening up a research center in Nairobi, this year alone Rometty has spent about three weeks in Africa. She also announced a $100 million investment, called Project Lucy, to bring Watson to Africa.”She spends a lot of time on the ground there, several times a year,” says Jonathan Berman, an expert on doing business in Africa. “That’s a lot for a leader of a Fortune 100 company.”
5. “Brain-like” chips could be the future. In addition to continuing efforts on Watson and cloud computing, IBM’s 3,000 researchers are working on a wide variety of projects. “Brain-like” chips that can process multiple sensory inputs, a new class of polymers that are stronger than bone and completely recyclable, and sequencing and deciphering the genetic code of the cacao plant.
