IBM subsidiary Red Hat has named Matt Hicks, a company IT and engineering veteran, as its new President and Chief Executive Officer. Previously, Hicks was most recently the executive vice president of products and technology at Red Hat, but his experience at the company reaches back to 2006, when he began his career as a developer. The new CEO is taking over from Paul Cormier, who has led the company since its 2019 acquisition by IBM. Cormier will take on the role of Chairman of the Board at Red Hat, and Hicks will report to IBM CEO and Chairman Arvind Krishna.
During his extensive tenure at Red Hat, Hicks has worked his way through the ranks of the engineering department, holding leadership roles throughout. In his recent position as an EVP, he oversaw the company’s entire product strategy and engineering function. He also led the expansion of its open hybrid cloud strategy and portfolio, allowing customers to build and manage applications on-premises, in the cloud, or at the edge. The new CEO believes that open source is the innovation driver of the software industry, and he is clearly prepared to drive his company to the top of the open source market.
