Ginni Rometty

Also known as Virginia Rometty, Virginia Marie Nicosia

Ginni Rometty is a business executive who led IBM as its first woman CEO from 2012 to 2020 and pushed its Watson AI system from a Jeopardy!-playing computer toward commercial use. Trained in computer science and electrical engineering at Northwestern, she joined IBM as a systems engineer in 1981 and led the integration of PricewaterhouseCoopers' consulting arm after its purchase in 2002. As CEO, she announced a $1 billion-plus investment in Watson and a new Watson Group in 2014, showed new Watson customers at CES in 2016, and set out principles for trust in AI at Davos in 2017. She retired from IBM in 2020, co-chaired the jobs coalition OneTen, and published the book Good Power in 2023. Today she is co-chair of SkillsRight, the skills-first hiring organization that OneTen became in April 2026.

Now at: SkillsRight
Born: 1957
Badges: Bridge
Loyal

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

1957–1981

From Northwestern to IBM

Born Virginia Nicosia in Chicago in 1957, she enters Northwestern University in 1975 on a General Motors scholarship and graduates with high honors in computer science and electrical engineering from its McCormick School of Engineering in 1979. After working at General Motors Institute in Flint, she joins IBM as a systems engineer in Detroit in 1981.
2002–2011

Integrating PwC Consulting

In 2002, she helps negotiate IBM's purchase of PricewaterhouseCoopers' consulting business and leads its integration, creating a team of more than 100,000 consultants and services experts. She receives the Carl Sloane Award in 2006 and becomes senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy in 2009. In 2011, she is at the helm of readying Watson, the Jeopardy!-playing computer, for commercial use.
2012

IBM's first woman CEO

She becomes IBM's president and CEO in January 2012, the first woman to head the company, and adds the role of chairman in October 2012. Time names her to the Time 100 list in 2012.
2014

The IBM Watson Group

In January 2014, she announces a $1 billion-plus, multi-year investment in Watson, calling it the first system in a new era of computing, and forms a Watson Group of 2,000 employees headquartered in New York's East Village. At Mobile World Congress in February 2014, she launches a global challenge for developers to build mobile apps powered by Watson.
2016–2017

Watson at CES and Davos

In her keynote at CES in January 2016, she announces new Watson customers, among them Under Armour, Medtronic, Whirlpool and SoftBank, which puts Watson inside its Pepper robot. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2017, she says trust in AI will grow through transparency and three basic principles, and she calls IBM's approach "cognitive" because it augments human intelligence.
2019–2020

Red Hat and retirement

At IBM's THINK conference in February 2019, she says IBM "never overpromised" on Watson and calls Watson a capability. Her tenure as CEO brings 65 acquisitions, including Red Hat, the largest in IBM's history, and she receives the Edison Achievement Award in 2019. Arvind Krishna succeeds her as CEO in April 2020, and she retires from IBM in December 2020.
2020–2024

OneTen and Good Power

In December 2020, she and Merck CEO Ken Frazier present OneTen, a coalition of 37 CEOs pledging to train, hire and promote one million Black Americans over ten years, which the two co-chair. Harvard Business Review Press publishes her book Good Power in March 2023, and in March 2023 she discusses Deep Blue and IBM Watson on the Lex Fridman Podcast. In May 2024, she promotes "skills first" hiring, a term she says she coined.
April 2026

Co-chair of SkillsRight

In April 2026, OneTen becomes SkillsRight, which helps companies operationalize skills-first hiring and expands into AI-powered tools and workforce insights. She is its co-chair, alongside Kenneth Frazier.