Rometty is IBM’s first female CEO

IBM Corp. has announced Virginia “Ginni” Rometty will replace Samuel Palmisano as CEO on Jan. 1, 2012. Rometty will be the first female chief executive in the company’s 100-year history, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

Rometty, 54, is the company’s senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy, Marketwatch reports.

According to the New York Times:

Her selection for the top job at IBM will make her one of the highest-profile women executives in corporate America, joining a small group of women chief executives that includes Ursula Burns of Xerox, Indra Nooyi of Pepsico, Ellen Kullman of DuPont and Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard.

Rometty succeeds current CEO Samuel J. Palmisano, who will remain as chairman, the New York Times reports. Palmisano has been CEO since 2002 and led IBM’s transition to becoming a computer services and software giant while exiting several businesses such as PCs, printers and hard-disk drives, Marketwatch reports.

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Originally from Chicago, Rometty has a degree in computer science and electrical engineering from Northwestern University and joined IBM in the early 1980s, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

According to Bloomberg Businessweek:

The 30-year IBM veteran caught Palmisano’s attention in 2002 when she helped integrate the $3.9 billion acquisition of PwC Consulting, IBM’s largest deal ever at the time. Rometty, then a general manager of the consulting unit, is credited with helping to retain PwC’s principal consultants, who didn’t always mesh with IBM’s cost-cutting culture.

When Rometty steps into the CEO job in January, IBM will become the largest company to be led by a female executive, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. (Currently, that distinction belongs to PepsiCo Inc.)

“Ginni got it because she deserved it,” Palmisano told the New York Times. “It’s got zero to do with progressive social policies.”