This means that Luo Ruilan surpassed Indra K. Nooyi of PepsiCo in one fell swoop and became a woman leading the world's largest enterprise. She is also another female leader in Silicon Valley after Whitman became CEO of HP a month ago. The two IT giants in the world began to enter the era of "she".
Unlike Whitman, who was criticized when he took office, Luo Ruilan, who worked in IBM for more than 30 years, won Peng's appreciation and trust, and the market also gave an extremely calm response to this "textbook appointment": IBM's share price barely fluctuated.
For the plan after taking office, Luo Ruilan said that her first task is to implement the established strategy and formulate the IBM 20 15 roadmap, and will continue to increase investment in research and development including cloud computing services, massive data and business analysis, and accelerate the commercialization of technology. On July 30th, 20 12, Peng blew out the candles of his 60th birthday cake, which also sounded the horn of IBM's replacement of the head, because 60 is the established retirement age of IBM's senior management.
Luo Ruilan's successor was favored by the outside world by Mike Daniels, the head of the company's service department, but the 54-year-old Luo Ruilan became the final winner with his excellent execution ability and customer service ability.
As an "old minister" who has worked in IBM for more than 30 years, Luo Ruilan is currently the company's senior vice president, mainly responsible for sales, marketing and strategy. As of 20 12, she managed IBM's revenue, profits and customer relationships in 70 countries and regions around the world, and was also responsible for IBM's global performance.
Luo Ruilan holds a double bachelor's degree in computer science and electronic engineering from Northwest University. After graduation, she worked as an intern in General Motors for two years. In order to find "passion and love" for her work, she came to IBM as a system analyst.
After dealing with technical work 10 years, she joined the financial services consulting department of IBM and became the general manager of the department all the way, responsible for IBM's business strategy in the global insurance market, including marketing, sales and consulting.
"She is a beautiful and moving woman, and customers always like her." Fred amoroso, who used to be her boss in the financial services consulting department, commented, "At the same time, she has formed a great team, and they seem to be able to fight every battle well."
In 2002, she led the team to complete the largest acquisition business in the history of consulting industry-IBM acquired PricewaterhouseCoopers, and established a global team consisting of more than 654.38 million business consultants and service experts, using information technology to help customers improve their performance. Consulting service is the foundation of IBM's IT service business, which also makes IBM become a top strategic consulting company from a pure technology provider.
After this campaign, Lorilan became famous in the industry and gained the attention and esteem of her boss Peng. Since then, she has led the establishment of IBM global service execution centers in China and India, and accumulated rich professional knowledge and experience in leading complex large-scale business transformation. With her outstanding performance, Luo Ruilan was named "50 Most Influential Women in Business" by Fortune magazine for seven consecutive years, which also established her irreplaceable position in IBM.
In recent years, Luo Ruilan has led various departments within IBM. The company arranged her rotation this time, in fact, to prepare for "succession"-to train her into a typical and comprehensive IBM-style senior management talent. From the fact that Luo Ruilan and other IBM executives have mentioned "Smart Earth" in public for almost countless times, it can be seen that the intelligent integrated management service based on cloud computing will be the top priority of the company in the next step, and it will also be the key weapon for Luo Ruilan to face the challenge directly. It seems a good choice to let elephants "dance in the clouds".
Luo Ruilan often wears a small black dress and a white freshwater pearl necklace, and a simple hair band embellishes her signature short blond hair. As soon as Lorraine appeared on the stage, she always stood out among a group of men in black suits and white shirts. Of course, it was her warm smile that infected the audience.
As one of the important pioneers of IBM in emerging markets, Luo Ruilan often attends various public relations activities including China. She attended the IBM 20 1 1 forum held in Beijing in March.
"Since the beginning of the last century, the list of the world's top 50 enterprises has been changing, which reminds us that enterprises do not exist forever. We must make unremitting efforts for the future development of enterprises in the process of innovation and change ... Today, IBM's business scope has covered hardware and leasing, software, technical consulting, business consulting and other fields, and our future development direction is to join hands with all walks of life to build a' smart earth'." Luo Ruilan said in his speech.
After the financial turmoil and the Internet bubble, cloud computing has brought new vitality to the global IT industry. According to IBM's statistics, in 20 10, they successfully implemented 2000 cloud computing projects, among which 50% of the top 10 companies and top 50 companies adopted their private cloud support, and 80% of the top 500 companies adopted IBM cloud functions.
On June 5438+ 10, 2009, Peng first put forward the concept of "smart earth", aiming at making the world run more intelligently and improving performance, efficiency and productivity through the interaction among individuals, enterprises, organizations, government, nature and society. After receiving a positive response from US President Barack Obama, this plan rose to the national strategy of the United States.
A month later, "Smart Earth" extended its tentacles to China in an all-round way, proposing that "Smart Earth wins in China".
When customers start to hold their wallets and say, "The market environment is not good, I won't buy IT facilities!" "Lorraine will tell him with her warm smile:" It doesn't matter, we can provide services according to your needs, and you can buy as much as you need like water and electricity. ""In the era of cloud computing, instead of telling customers what to do, we should pay attention to how customers do it, and then define products with customer needs as the center. "
According to the company's roadmap, by 20 15, the cloud computing business will bring about $7 billion in revenue to IBM. More than 30 years ago, Lorraine, who just entered the workplace, received an invitation from a company and offered her a very important position. After much consideration, Lorraine decided that her work experience was not up to the job, so she said to the company, "I still need some time." She told her husband about it, and he asked, "Why refuse a challenging job?"
"This incident has taught me that I must face all challenges with confidence, even if I am still uncertain." 20 1 1, 1 1, Luo Ruilan participated in Fortune magazine's "Most Influential Women Summit Forum" and recalled this experience. "Since then, I have been challenging myself, because growth and ease can never last, and I have to take risks to grow."
Lorraine grew up in a midwestern American family, ranking first among the four children in the family. Her parents divorced when she was very young, and her mother brought up her brothers and sisters. "I have a strong mother." She said in an interview. Under the careful cultivation of this powerful mother, Lorraine is not the only child in the family who has achieved something. One of her sisters holds a degree in computer science and is a partner of Accenture-interestingly, Accenture is the biggest competitor of IBM's global service business; Another sister works in Coca-Cola Company; Her brother currently runs the largest cotton trading company in the world.