Arvind Krishna

Arvind Krishna
Born	23 11, 1962
Birthplace	West Godavari, Andhra Pradesh, India
Nationality	American
Occupation	Business executive
Title	Chairman and CEO, IBM
Known for	Leading IBM's cloud and AI strategy; architecting the Red Hat acquisition
Education	University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign (PhD)

Arvind Krishna (born November 23, 1962) is an Indian-American business executive who serves as the chairman and chief executive officer of IBM, one of the world's largest technology companies. He assumed the role of CEO in April 2020, succeeding Ginni Rometty, and became chairman of IBM's board of directors in January 2021. Krishna spent three decades at IBM before reaching its top leadership position, beginning his career in 1990 at the company's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. He rose through the organization's technical and managerial ranks, eventually becoming senior vice president overseeing IBM's Cloud & Cognitive Software and IBM Research divisions. He is recognized as a principal architect of IBM's $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat in 2019, the largest acquisition in the company's history, a deal that reshaped IBM's strategic direction toward hybrid cloud computing and open-source enterprise software. Under his leadership, IBM has refocused its business around artificial intelligence, hybrid cloud, and quantum computing, contributing to a significant rise in the company's stock performance.

Early Life

Arvind Krishna was born on November 23, 1962, in West Godavari district, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. His appointment as CEO of IBM placed him among a growing number of Indian-origin executives leading major global technology corporations, a cohort that includes leaders of companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Adobe.

Krishna grew up in India before pursuing higher education, first at one of the country's premier engineering institutions and later in the United States. Details about his family background and childhood remain limited in published sources, though his trajectory from a district in Andhra Pradesh to the helm of a multinational technology company with over 250,000 employees has been noted in Indian and international media coverage. His rise through IBM's ranks was rooted in deep technical expertise, particularly in systems architecture, cloud computing, and data management, skills that he first began developing during his years as a student of engineering and computer science.

Education

Krishna earned a Bachelor of Technology (BTech) degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur), one of India's most selective engineering institutions. He subsequently moved to the United States, where he completed a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. His doctoral work provided the technical foundation for a career that would span research, product development, and corporate strategy at IBM. The combination of an IIT education and a doctoral degree from a leading American research university positioned Krishna within a pipeline of Indian-born technologists who have assumed senior leadership positions in the American technology industry.

Career

Early Career at IBM Research (1990–2015)

Arvind Krishna joined IBM in 1990, beginning his career at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, the company's primary research facility located in Yorktown Heights, New York. His early work at IBM was focused on research and development, and over the course of two and a half decades, he accumulated deep expertise across a range of technology domains, including data management, information security, and systems engineering.

Krishna held a number of technical and managerial positions during his tenure at IBM Research. He became involved in several of the company's key technology initiatives, building a reputation within the organization as both a technically proficient engineer and an effective leader of large research teams. His work contributed to IBM's portfolio of patents and research publications, areas in which the company has historically maintained a leading position in the technology industry.

Senior Vice President: Cloud and Cognitive Software (2015–2020)

In January 2015, Krishna was promoted to the role of senior vice president, taking charge of IBM's Cloud & Cognitive Software division as well as IBM Research. In this capacity, he oversaw the development and commercialization of IBM's cloud computing platform and its portfolio of artificial intelligence and cognitive computing products, including components of the IBM Watson ecosystem.

During this period, Krishna emerged as one of the most influential executives within IBM, playing a central role in the company's strategic pivot toward cloud computing and AI. He was a principal architect of IBM's acquisition of Red Hat, the open-source enterprise software company, which was completed in July 2019 at a cost of approximately $34 billion. The Red Hat deal was the largest acquisition in IBM's history and one of the largest technology acquisitions ever completed at that time. The transaction was viewed by industry analysts as a critical move to strengthen IBM's position in the hybrid cloud market, where enterprises deploy computing workloads across a combination of on-premises infrastructure and public cloud services.

Krishna's role in orchestrating the Red Hat acquisition significantly raised his profile both within IBM and across the broader technology industry. He was seen as the executive most closely identified with the deal's strategic rationale, and his technical background gave him credibility in articulating how Red Hat's open-source technology would integrate with IBM's existing enterprise software and services offerings.

Appointment as CEO (2020)

On January 30, 2020, IBM's board of directors announced that Arvind Krishna would succeed Ginni Rometty as CEO, effective April 6, 2020. Rometty, who had served as CEO since 2012, announced that she would retire by the end of 2020. The appointment was described in media reports as a signal that IBM intended to accelerate its hybrid cloud strategy, given Krishna's central role in the Red Hat acquisition.

The announcement drew considerable attention both in the United States and in India. Indian media outlets and industry figures noted that Krishna's appointment continued a trend of Indian-origin executives ascending to the top positions at major American technology firms. Krishna formally took over as CEO on April 6, 2020, a transition that occurred during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, adding a layer of operational complexity to his first months in the role.

In January 2021, Krishna also assumed the role of chairman of IBM's board of directors, consolidating the company's top leadership positions under a single individual.

Strategic Direction Under Krishna

As CEO, Krishna has pursued a strategy centered on three core pillars: hybrid cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. The hybrid cloud approach, anchored by the Red Hat acquisition, has been the centerpiece of IBM's business transformation. Under Krishna's leadership, IBM repositioned itself as a platform company focused on helping enterprise clients manage complex, multi-cloud environments using Red Hat's OpenShift and related technologies.

In 2021, IBM completed the spin-off of its managed infrastructure services unit into a separate publicly traded company called Kyndryl, a move that was intended to allow IBM to concentrate on its higher-margin software and consulting businesses. This divestiture, announced during Krishna's first year as CEO, represented one of the most significant structural changes in IBM's corporate history, separating a business unit that had employed tens of thousands of workers.

Krishna has also made artificial intelligence a central element of IBM's corporate strategy and public messaging. IBM's AI products, including its watsonx platform, have been positioned as enterprise-grade AI tools designed for regulated industries such as banking, healthcare, and government. In a 2026 interview with McKinsey & Company, Krishna discussed the imperative for business leaders to embrace AI-driven transformation, stating that leaders must be "willing to 'do,' as opposed to getting disrupted by somebody else."

In 2023, Krishna made headlines when he stated that IBM expected to pause hiring for roles that could be replaced by AI, estimating that roughly 7,800 positions—primarily in back-office functions such as human resources—could be automated over a five-year period. The remark attracted significant media attention and debate about AI's impact on employment. By 2026, IBM reversed course, with the company's human resources leadership announcing that IBM would triple its entry-level hiring across the United States, a shift from the earlier stance.

Quantum computing has represented another significant area of investment and public communication under Krishna's tenure. IBM has continued to develop its quantum computing hardware and software ecosystem, and Krishna has spoken publicly about the long-term potential of quantum technology to solve problems beyond the reach of classical computers. In a February 2026 appearance on Bloomberg Television, Krishna discussed AI as "a central force for growth" while also acknowledging its potential for job displacement, and spoke about the future of quantum computing at IBM.

Krishna has also engaged with policymakers on AI governance and regulation. In an October 2025 conversation with Axios in Washington, D.C., he discussed IBM's perspective on AI policy, touching on topics ranging from quantum computing to the company's approach to responsible AI deployment.

In December 2025, Krishna commented publicly on the scale of infrastructure investment required to support advanced AI development, noting that building a 100-gigawatt infrastructure for artificial general intelligence (AGI) could cost approximately $8 trillion, a figure he described as "today's number."

IBM's Presence in India

Krishna has maintained connections with India throughout his career and has overseen IBM's continued investment in the country, where the company employs a substantial workforce. In February 2026, Krishna discussed IBM's expanding presence in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and the city of Lucknow in an interview with the Indian media outlet Business Today, highlighting IBM's growing operations in the region.

Personal Life

Arvind Krishna was born in the West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, India, and later emigrated to the United States for graduate studies. He holds American citizenship. Details about his personal and family life are limited in published sources. Krishna has generally maintained a low public profile outside of his professional responsibilities at IBM.

His appointment as CEO of IBM was celebrated in India, with industry leaders and peers acknowledging the significance of an Indian-origin technologist leading one of the world's oldest and most prominent technology companies. Business Today India described him as joining "the elite club of Indian-origin CEOs" leading major global corporations.

Recognition

Since assuming the role of CEO, Krishna has received attention for IBM's improved stock performance. As of September 2025, IBM's stock had risen approximately 159 percent since Krishna took charge of the company, a period during which the firm executed its pivot to hybrid cloud and AI. Forbes attributed this stock performance in part to Krishna's leadership in reviving "meaningful innovation at IBM," particularly in the areas of hybrid cloud, AI, and quantum computing.

Krishna's leadership has drawn regular coverage in major financial and technology publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Fortune, Forbes, and The New York Times. His role in the Red Hat acquisition has been cited as one of the defining technology deals of the late 2010s, fundamentally reshaping IBM's business model and competitive positioning in the enterprise technology market.

His public commentary on AI, quantum computing, and the future of enterprise technology has placed him among the most prominent voices in American business discussions about artificial intelligence policy and strategy. His participation in interviews and events organized by McKinsey & Company, Bloomberg, Axios, and other major platforms reflects his standing as a leading figure in the technology industry's leadership conversation.

Legacy

Arvind Krishna's tenure as IBM's CEO has been marked by a deliberate effort to reposition a 110-year-old company for a technology landscape defined by cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. The $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, which Krishna orchestrated before becoming CEO, represented a fundamental strategic bet on hybrid cloud as the future of enterprise computing—a bet that has subsequently become central to IBM's revenue growth and market positioning.

The spin-off of Kyndryl in 2021 represented another structural transformation, separating IBM's legacy infrastructure services business and allowing the remaining company to focus on higher-margin software and consulting operations. This move, combined with the Red Hat integration, marked the most significant reshaping of IBM's corporate structure in decades.

Krishna's public statements on AI's impact on employment—first the 2023 prediction of job displacement, followed by IBM's 2026 announcement of tripled entry-level hiring—have illustrated the evolving and sometimes contradictory nature of corporate approaches to artificial intelligence adoption. His willingness to engage publicly with the difficult questions surrounding AI and jobs has made him a frequently cited figure in broader debates about technology and the workforce.

As an Indian-American executive leading one of America's most historically significant technology companies, Krishna has been noted as part of a broader phenomenon of Indian-origin leaders at the helm of major U.S. corporations. His journey from the West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh through IIT Kanpur and the University of Illinois to the chairmanship of IBM reflects both individual achievement and the broader patterns of Indian technical talent in the American technology sector.