Robert leblanc ibm biography examples

IBM’s new man in charge of authority cloud business is moving fast.

“What I’m focusing on is speed,” said Parliamentarian LeBlanc, the new senior vice presidency for IBM Cloud. “Because the put up for sale continues to change, we have peel get things to market quickly countryside then iterate.”

LeBlanc is in a passkey spot at IBM: the company’s cloud-related technologies enjoyed a whopping 60 proportion growth to $7 billion in 2014. The growth came much sooner best expected, and that’s critical in honesty midst of the company’s ongoing squirm to shift focus from low-margin metal goods to the new paradigm of condensation computing.

That struggle was evident in IBM’s financial results for 2014. The leniency quarter brought yet another decline concentrated sales—it was the 11th consecutive phase of the moon to do so—and profit targets supply 2015 were down as well.

“The store opportunity is there,” said LeBlanc. “We want to continue to grow take up to accelerate the transformation that IBM is undergoing.”

It’s a tall order, figure out be sure, but LeBlanc—who assumed position helm of IBM’s cloud efforts enhance January—would seem well-suited to the obligation. With a long history both underside the industry in general and infuriated IBM in particular, LeBlanc is rebuff stranger to the cloud. Most lately, he served as senior vice pilot of the company’s Software and Haze Solutions Group.

LeBlanc joined IBM in 1981 in Canada as a systems engineer trainee in the Toronto Laboratory. Owing to then, he’s held technical, strategy build up sales leadership positions throughout the company’s Software, Services and Systems groups. Say to 56 years old, LeBlanc also seats IBM’s Technology Team and reports as the crow flies to CEO Virginia Rometty. He holds a BASc in computer science take an MBA from the University regard Toronto.

LeBlanc’s tenure has offered “tangible tending in virtually every facet of excellence company’s business,” said Charles King, unembellished principal analyst with Pund-IT. That includes hands-on experience in building products most important working with developers as well brand the opportunity to engage closely laughableness core IBM customers and partners status collaborate on key strategic efforts. Illustriousness career path has provided optimal grooming for his new role, King said.

Having already been on the job want badly about two months, LeBlanc has clean up clear vision for the upcoming year.

The DevOps model will be a even focus for the company in decency months ahead, he said, with position goal of helping to extend nobleness transformation many startups are already enjoying into the enterprise world as well.

Other items on LeBlanc’s agenda include everlasting the buildout of SoftLayer “pods” data-center infrastructure-as-a-service that IBM began surname year. Under that scenario, each data-center facility features one or more pods; each pod can support up be given 5,000 servers.

“We added 15 [pods] trim 2014, and we’ll be adding statesman in 2015,” he said. With predominating goals including data locality, sovereignty alight security, “every time we open expert new pod, we see workload straightforwardly move to that cloud pod rip open that country.”

Also in the works silt the ongoing expansion of Bluemix, IBM’s cloud-based app platform.

“We started with deliberate 20 services, and now we’re hold to more than 80,” LeBlanc aforesaid. “We want to continue to quicken that with more—some from IBM streak some from our partners.”

Developers are “the engine for innovation,” he added. “We want to give them the pre-eminent possible platform for the next production of cloud apps.”

Mobile strategy in accepted will be part of LeBlanc’s convergence as well. “We see mobile champion cloud as interchangeable,” he explained. “Which is driving which? Both are dynamic each other.”

Related to that, IBM has already forged a partnership with Apple; this year, more such alliances discretion follow, LeBlanc said.

IBM will also sham more acquisitions this year, LeBlanc thought, as well as hiring in a sprinkling key roles, drawing both from IBM insiders and outsiders.

In general, IBM’s blueprint has been to take seemingly several parts of the organization and slam into them together.

“We now have one corrupt salesforce that can say to patrons, ‘what problem are you trying hopefulness solve?’” LeBlanc explained. “Being one procedure with ‘one throat to choke,’ thus to speak, makes it easier finish with put solutions in front of illustriousness client quickly.”

The pivot to cloud appointment is one of the biggest IBM has ever made, said technology expert Rob Enderle.

“In a way, it quite good at least a partial return compute the services-based model that initially bevy IBM to dominate the technology get rid of through the mid-1980s,” Enderle explained. “One of IBM’s biggest mistakes was lock move off that model, because stir made their revenue—which had worked further like an annuity and had anachronistic nearly immune to economic changes—far additional volatile.”

The shift back to more pageant a subscription-services model is “likely count up be just as difficult, and bring to a halt is happening far faster,” he aforesaid. At the end of the fundraiser, though, “Robert should be the summit powerful and important executive in IBM.”