Storage News
The 25 Most Influential Executives Of 2021
CRN Staff
These 25 CEOs offered solution providers much-needed partnership at a time when the channel needed it most.
1. Arvind Krishna
Chairman, CEO
IBM
Krishna is pushing the company at which he started his career to break beyond the “enduring platforms” it created in mainframe, services and middleware into what he calls the “fourth” IBM platform: hybrid cloud.
To make that happen, Krishna has IBM moving at lightning speed to become the leader in hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence. In just 16 months at the helm, Krishna has made 14 acquisitions, set in motion the spin-off of IBM’s $19 billion Global Technology Services managed infrastructure unit and put in place the biggest change in IBM’s go-to-market model in the last three decades.
All of this is in pursuit of his ambitious goal to make the storied computer company he loves so dearly the undisputed winner of the architectural battle in the cloud. Krishna said it is a privilege to be “a custodian” of the rich IBM legacy. “I bleed blue,” he said. “It’s the people. It’s the technology. It’s the clients and all IBM has done.”
