IBM President Whitehurst Exits in CEO’s Shake-Up; Shares Dip
- Whitehurst’s departure is one of several leadership changes
- IBM did not announced a replacement for the president role
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International Business Machines Corp. President Jim Whitehurst is stepping down after three years at the century-old technology company. The shares fell the most in five months.
The departure marks one of the first major corporate reshuffles under Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna, who took the helm last year and has moved quickly to reshape IBM and return it to growth. Whitehurst, 53, is the former CEO of Red Hat Inc., which IBM announced it was acquiring in 2018 in a $33 billion deal orchestrated by Krishna. As CEO, Krishna has focused on fast-growing technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud-computing services in an effort to revive decades of stagnation.