Arvind Krishna is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IBM, one of the world’s largest technology companies.  Krishna received a Bachelor of Technology degree in electrical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1985 and a Doctor of Philosophy in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1991. He joined IBM in 1990 at its Thomas J. Watson Research Center and spent his entire career at the company, rising through the ranks over three decades.

Krishna was promoted to senior vice president in 2015, managing IBM Cloud & Cognitive Software and IBM Research divisions. He has been CEO of IBM since April 2020 and chairman since January 2021.  He has steered the company’s focus towards emerging technologies like AI, cloud computing, and quantum computing. Collaboration, innovation and encouraging calculated risks are central to Krishna’s leadership style.  He also oversaw the historic $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, the largest in IBM’s history. Krishna continues to champion IBM as a leader in the development and implementation of next-generation technologies. Krishna is the co-author of 15 patents, acted as editor of IEEE and ACM journals, and has published extensively in technical conferences and journals. As IBM’s first CEO with an engineering background, he has instilled a more nimble and agile culture at the 114-year-old company.

Under Krishna’s leadership, IBM has positioned itself as a leader in responsible AI development and continues to focus on enterprise technology solutions, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence services. Outside of the boardroom, Krishna is known to be an avid sportsman and sportsfan. He is an experienced CEO whose commitment to innovation will be central to IBM’s future success in the age of AI. Indiaspora is proud to have Arvind Krishna on our Business Leaders 2.0 List.