Jim Whitehurst resigns as IBM chairman amid leadership reshuffle

In a surprise move, IBM today announced that Jim Whitehurst, who became IBM president 14 months before IBM's acquisition of Red Hat, has stepped down. No successor was named.

Whitehurst, formerly Red Hat's president and chief executive officer, will continue as IBM's chief executive officer Arvind Krishna and as senior advisor to the executive team.

Bridget van Kralingen, formerly Senior Vice President, Global Markets, will become SVP for a year, Special Projects and then plans to retire. Rob Thomas, who has had leadership roles in multiple areas of IBM including data and AI, hardware, services and software, will replace him as SVP for global markets.

His departure was revealed by Krishna in a post that also included several other leadership changes, all of which were effective immediately.

Tom Rosamilia, who is leading IBM's systems business, has become SVP, cloud and cognitive software. He has been replaced as SVP of systems by Rick Lewis, former SVP and general manager of the software-defined and cloud group at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Ultimately, Kelly Chambliss was promoted to SVP, Americas and Strategic Sales, to lead Global Strategic Sales in Global Business Services and to continue her leadership of IBM's Americas business, and as SVP and Chief Financial Officer. As Roger Premo. Jim will lead a new business development team under Kavanaugh.

Krishna said that Bob Lord will continue as SVP, a worldwide ecosystem.