Arvind Krishna (born November 23, 1962) is an American business executive, and the chairman and CEO of

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

. He has been CEO of IBM since April 2020 and chairman since January 2021. Arvind began his career at IBM in 1990, at its Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and was promoted to senior vice president in 2015, managing IBM Cloud & Cognitive Software and IBM Research divisions. He was a principal architect of the acquisition of

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...

, the largest acquisition in the company’s history.

Early life and education

Arvind was born in a Telugu family in West Godavari District, in the

Coastal Andhra Coastal Andhra, also known as Kosta Andhra (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: Kōstā Āndhra), is a geographic region in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, comprising the coastal districts of the state between the East ...

region of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

, India. His father, Major General Vinod Krishna, was an army officer who served in the

Indian Army The Indian Army (IA) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Land warfare, land-based branch and largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief, Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head ...

and his mother, Aarathi Krishna, worked for the welfare of Army widows. Krishna studied at Stanes Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School in Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, and at St Joseph's Academy, Dehradun. Arvind received a Bachelor of Technology degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1985 and a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

in electrical engineering from the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

in 1991.

Career

Professional career

Arvind joined IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in 1990, and continued in Watson Research for 18 years until 2009. Thereafter, he held a General Manager role in Information management software and systems and technology group of IBM. In 2015, he was promoted to senior vice president of IBM Research. He later became senior vice president of IBM's

cloud In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles, suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...

and cognitive software division. Arvind also led the building and expansion of new markets for IBM in

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

, cloud, quantum computing, and blockchain technology. He was a driving force behind IBM's $34 billion acquisition of

, which closed in July 2019. He was appointed IBM's CEO in January 2020, effective April 6, 2020, succeeding Ginni Rometty who was CEO since 2012. He joined

Satya Nadella Satya Narayana Nadella (; born 19 August 1967) is an Indian-born American business executive who is the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014 as CEO and John W. Thompson in 2021 as chairman. B ...

, Shantanu Narayen, and Sundar Pichai as an Indian-American CEO of a major

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

technology company. In 2021, he was named by CRN as the year's "Most Influential Executive".

Research

He has co-authored 15

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

s, has been the editor of

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

and ACM journals, and has published extensively in technical journals.

Personal life

Arvind Krishna is married and has two children. He lives in

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

References

External links

*
Arvind Krishna
– ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Krishna, Arvind 1962 births IBM employees American computer businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesspeople American electrical engineers American chief executives American technology chief executives American chief executives of Fortune 500 companies IBM people Living people Telugu people Engineers from Andhra Pradesh Indian emigrants to the United States IIT Kanpur alumni Grainger College of Engineering alumni Businesspeople from Andhra Pradesh American people of Telugu descent Chief executives in the technology industry Proprietary technology salespersons