IBM names former Bank of America CTO as new head of Cloud business

April 06, 2020

Former Bank of America CTO Howard Boville is joining IBM to oversee the cloud business, new IBM CEO Arvind Krishna announced Monday. Boville will join May 1 as Senior Vice President of Cloud Platform.

Boville “is a proven strategist and expert in the realm of cloud and has played a critical role in developing the financial services ready public cloud with IBM,” Krishna wrote in a letter to IBM employees.

Late last year, IBM said it was collaborating with Bank of America to design a public cloud tailored to meet the specific needs of the financial services industry, such as regulatory and privacy requirements.

Krishna, who was named CEO earlier this year, also announced a few other leadership changes: IBM’s open-source software company Red Hat has named Paul Cormier as its new president and CEO. Previous Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst will now serve as president of IBM, heading up IBM Strategy as well as the Cloud and Cognitive Software unit. Additionally, IBM’s Bridget van Kralingen will become Senior Vice President of Global Markets.

In his letter to employees, Krishna also stressed that “now is the time to build a fourth platform in hybrid cloud.”

“The fundamentals are already in place,” he continued, arguing that IBM is already leading in cloud, AI, blockchain and quantum — “all the tectonic forces shaping the future of technology.”

To advance IBM’s hybrid cloud strategy, Krishna said, IBM needs to take specific actions. That includes “deepen[ing] our understanding of IBM’s two strategic battles: the journey to hybrid cloud and AI” and leveraging IBM’s sources of competitive advantage, such as its open source leadership.

Next, he said, IBM needs to “win the architectural battle in cloud” by exploiting the “unique window of opportunity for IBM and Red Hat to establish Linux, containers and Kubernetes as the new standard.” Lastly, he said, IBM “must be obsessed with continually delighting our clients.”