Professional career Krishna joined IBM's
Thomas J. Watson Research Center in 1990, and continued in Watson Research for 18 years until 2009. Thereafter, he held a General Manager role in Information management software and systems and technology group of IBM. In 2015, he was promoted to senior vice president of
IBM Research. He later became senior vice president of IBM's
cloud and cognitive software division. Krishna also led the building and expansion of new markets for IBM in
artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum computing, and
blockchain technology. He was a driving force behind IBM's $34 billion acquisition of
Red Hat, which closed in July 2019. He was appointed IBM's CEO in January 2020, effective April 6, 2020, succeeding
Ginni Rometty who was CEO since 2012. He joined
Satya Nadella,
Shantanu Narayen, and
Sundar Pichai as an
Indian-American CEO of a major
United States technology company. In 2021, he was named by
CRN as the year's "Most Influential Executive". Krishna is a member of
The Business Council.
Research Krishna has co-authored 15
patents, has been the editor of
IEEE and
ACM journals, and has published extensively in technical journals. == Personal life ==