The news last week that Ginni Rometty was stepping down from her role as CEO was music to some employees' ears, according to a survey. Blind surveyed a pool of 4,100 verified IBM employees and got responses from 105 of them, which admittedly is not a large sample base. But only 28.6% of those that did respond thought Rometty had a positive impact on Big Blue during her nine years as CEO.
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By contrast, 67% of those surveyed said they believed that Arvind Krishna, who will take over as CEO in April, would have a positive impact on IBM. Only 6% thought Krishna would have a negative impact on IBM while 27.6 were neutral.
“I believe Arvind Krishna will be a net positive, and will focus on making IBM about tech again rather than marketing hype," according to one employee that took the survey.
"Arvind is a numbers guy with a strong technical background, so even if he is an old timer, the main strategy he is pushing is similar to that of GCP, AWS, and Azure. For corporate strategy, Arvind will be good for the company," another replied on Blind's web page.
Friday's announcement also included the news that former Red Hat CEO James Whitehurst, who joined IBM after it bought Red Hat last year, would take over as IBM's president in April, which was also well received in Blind's survey.
"The important thing is that Jim Whitehurst is being made president, so it will be his responsibility for improving IBM work culture. We need to learn from the culture of Red Hat," according to one of the comments.
The survey also asked if Rometty's departure would negatively impact IBM's diversity and inclusion efforts, to which 92% replied "no."
Blind conducted its survey from Thursday through Monday. — Mike
Editor's Corners are opinion columns written by a member of the Fierce editorial team. They are edited for balance and accuracy.