James Moon Whitehurst is an American business executive. He was the President at IBM and chair of the board at Red Hat, and previously Chief Executive Officer at Red Hat and Chief Operating Officer at

Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines, Inc., typically referred to as Delta, is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. One of the world's oldest airlines in operation, Delta is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The airline, along w ...

. Prior to working at Delta in 2001, he served as Vice President and Director of the

Boston Consulting Group Boston Consulting Group, Inc. (BCG) is an American global management consulting firm founded in 1963 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the Big Three (or MBB, the world’s three largest management consulting firms by re ...

and held various management roles at its

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

and

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

offices. During his time at Delta between 2005 and 2007, Whitehurst oversaw the company's recovery from bankruptcy, as well as its struggle against

US Airways US Airways (formerly USAir) was a major United States airline that operated from 1937 until its merger with American Airlines in 2015. It was originally founded in Pittsburgh as a mail delivery airline called All American Aviation, which soon ...

in 2006, who had repeatedly proposed mergers to the company. In 2013,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

Governor

Pat McCrory Patrick Lloyd McCrory (born October 17, 1956) is an American businessman, politician and radio host who served as the 74th governor of North Carolina from 2013 to 2017. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 53rd Mayor ...

appointed Whitehurst as a member and vice-chairman of the North Carolina Economic Development Board. In 2014, Whitehurst was selected as the recipient of the NC State Park Scholarships program's William C. Friday Award.

Early life

Born in Georgia, Whitehurst grew up in Columbus,

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

. He graduated from

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universities ...

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Economics. He also attended

University of Erlangen–Nuremberg University of Erlangen–Nuremberg (german: Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, FAU) is a public research university in the cities of Erlangen and Nuremberg in Bavaria, Germany. The name Friedrich–Alexander comes from the univ ...

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 inhab ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, spent a year of his undergraduate education in the General Course at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

, and received an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Career

After working for the Boston Consulting Group throughout 1989 to 2001, Whitehurst began working for Delta Air Lines, where he was Senior Vice President, and later Chief Network and Planning Officer. He was appointed by then-CEO Gerald Grinstein in 2005 as Chief Operating Officer, where he oversaw the company's bankruptcy and recovery from an attempted takeover from US Airways. Whitehurst became a prominent figure in the campaign known as "Keep Delta My Delta", having believed in the integrity of the company and its employees enough to resist the merger proposal and resolve the bankruptcy. He left the company on good terms in 2007. Whitehurst then joined Red Hat as CEO in December 2007. Following IBM's acquisition of Red Hat (in July 2019), later in January 2020 it was announced that Whitehurst will be appointed president of IBM on 6 April. On July 2, 2021 Whitehurst announced his resignation from IBM. On December 20, 2021, Whitehurst joined the Board of Directors at

cybersecurity Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, t ...

and systems management company

Tanium Tanium is a privately held cybersecurity and systems management company with headquarters in Kirkland, Washington and its operations center in Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the ...

as an independent director.

Publications

Whitehurst's first book, ''The Open Organization: Igniting Passion and Performance'', was published in 2015 by

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Ma ...

References

External links

Red Hat profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitehurst, Jim Boston Consulting Group people Delta Air Lines people Harvard Business School alumni Living people Open source people People from Columbus, Georgia Red Hat people Rice University alumni American chief operating officers American technology chief executives 1967 births Businesspeople from Georgia (U.S. state)