IBM veteran, Kathryn Guarini, has been appointed to the role of Chief Information Officer following the departure of Fletcher Previn. Previn spent 15 years with IBM, including nearly four years as CIO.
Guarini previously served as Chief Operations Officer and VP of Impact Science in IBM Research, and led the IBM Research transformation to increase impact, extend technical distinction, and improve the operational efficiency of the division.
She spent a total of four years at IBM Research, and prior to that had held numerous other roles within IBM, starting in 1999, when she joined as a research staff member. Guarini has a PhD in applied physics and more than 60 patents, bringing to the table a high-level of technical knowledge, and a "proven track-record in building organizational capability" and a passion for "mentoring, inspiring and recruiting scientists and engineers of all ages, especially women," said Jim Kavanaugh, IBM's Chief Financial Officer.
The announcement comes as IBM has also announced numerous developments. This month, the company announced that its hybrid cloud services are now generally available in any environment—on any cloud, on premises, or at the edge—via IBM Cloud Satellite. Lumen Technologies and IBM have integrated IBM Cloud Satellite with the Lumen edge platform to enable clients to harness hybrid cloud services in near real-time and build innovative solutions at the edge. By combining the deployment flexibility of IBM Cloud Satellite with the Lumen edge platform's broad availability, adaptive networking, and connected security capabilities, Lumen customers gain choice and speed in how they securely tap into the benefits of edge computing services.
IBM has also extended Watson Anywhere with the availability of IBM Cloud Pak for Data as a Service with IBM Cloud Satellite. This gives people a flexible, secure way to run their AI and analytics workloads as services across any environment, without having to manage them on their own.
Amid these new developments, Guarini is well positioned to continue to lead IBM’s technological future in this new role.
