5 Things To Know About IBM’s New President Jim Whitehurst

James Whitehurst brings a wide range of experience from corporate bankruptcy turnarounds to massive software revenue growth to IBM that combined could shake up Big Blue's business in a positive way and help restart growth.

Whitehurst: The Multi-faceted Executive

When IBM looked at ensuring a smooth succession after Ginni Rometty -- the company's current chairman, president, and CEO -- steps down later this year, it found what it was looking for in two company executives.

For its new CEO, IBM chose Arvind Krishna, currently the company's senior vice president for cloud and cognitive software and a longtime employee. But for president, IBM looked both inside and outside the box to choose James “Jim” Whitehurst, currently senior vice president of IBM and CEO of Red Hat. Whitehurst joined IBM only recently thanks to IBM's 2019 acquisition of Red Hat, which is known for the Linux operating system into a huge money maker for the company and one of the underpinnings for the cloud.

Whitehurst is bringing some unique experience to the top of the IBM executive team. For instance, he helped spearhead the recovery of another corporate giant, Delta Airlines, before transforming into the CEO of the fastest-growing open source software company.

For a look at what Whitehurst brings to IBM, and how it might impact Big Blue going forward, turn the page.

Well-Respected Leader

James Whitehurst, as president and CEO of Red Hat, was widely recognized for his leadership. His awards included being listed as one of the world's best CEOs by Barron's in 2018 and one of the 15 most-loved tech CEOs of 2015 by The Economic Times, and got Red Hat listed in Forbes' World's Most Innovative Companies six times.

He is also the author of a book, “The Open Organization: Igniting Passion And Performance.”

He did well for the head of a company that found a way to make a lot of money out of something customers could otherwise get for free.

Whitehurst Was President And CEO of Red Hat

Whitehurst spent the last 12 years as president and CEO of Red Hat, including the last half-year since IBM closed its acquisition of Red Hat. Red Hat, the biggest developer of software based on the Linux open source operating system, had a free-wheeling culture prior to his joining the company in January of 2008.

And, contrary to some expectations at the time, he allowed that culture to flourish and in doing so gave Red Hat the ability to enjoy fast growth. By 2012, Red Hat became the first open source company to reach the $1-billion revenue mark, and full fiscal 2019 revenue rose 15 percent year-over-year to reach $3.4 billion.

Can IBM expect that kind of growth? As a company, probably not. But expect Whitehurst to leverage his expertise in open source and software to help IBM expand in its software and cloud businesses.

IBM's First President In 20 Years

The last time IBM had a president who was at the same time not CEO was 20 years ago. Sam Palmisano took over as IBM president in 2000, during a time when Lou Gerstner ran IBM as chairman and CEO. Gerstner retired in 2002, after which Palmisano took the CEO spot, and followed up a year later by also becoming chairman.

Traditionally, a corporation's CEO manages its operations and resources, makes the major decisions, and is the corporate face, while the president leads the company's executive group. Having a separate CEO and president could be useful for IBM as it looks for ways to become more flexible and restore growth.

A Man Of Extremes

While Whitehurst's most recent (and for another couple months, current) experience before becoming president of IBM was his 12 years as president and CEO of Red Hat, his prior experience also includes a stint at a very, very different type of company.

Whitehurst spent six years at Delta Airlines, and left that company in 2007 as chief operating officer. Delta Airlines and Red Hat represented two different cultures: Delta was the personification of corporate America, and Red Hat is the personification of the free-wheeling modern tech industry.

Whitehurst, in an October 2018 Red Hat blog post, wrote about how different his Delta experience was compared to Red Hat. He wrote that, at Delta, he was known as the "guy with the binders" because he studied everything he could about the company and wrote everything he observed binders so he would not forget anything.

"Like so many people, I believed that's what modern leaders needed to be: someone with more knowledge than anyone else, someone with a brilliant vision of the future, someone who knows precisely how to move an organization forward with absolute certainty—in other words, someone who can impose order on chaos. But I was wrong. ...

The truth is that the world is just too full of uncertainty—too fast-moving, and too unpredictable for anyone to be able to anticipate and control everything. Leaders today need to realize this, and recognize that leadership is no longer about control, compliance and clairvoyance."

As IBM's president, expect him to take advantage of two different experiences--corporate and tech--to help IBM find a path to growth.

Experienced With Trouble

Whitehurst left Delta Airlines in 2007 in part because, despite expectations in the airline industry, he was not appointed CEO of the company after its previous CEO stepped down. That just happened to also be the year Delta emerged from bankruptcy.

Whitehurst was a big part of Delta's recovery, and was widely acclaimed at helping expand Delta's customer service and international expansion strategies, according to Fortune magazine.

That kind of experience will likely find a place as IBM looks to recover from several years of decline.