Former IBM chief executive officer and chairman Lou Gerstner.
Former IBM chief executive officer and chairman Lou Gerstner has died at the age of 83.
Current IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna informed employees of Gerstner’s death in an e-mail circulated yesterday.
“I am saddened to share that Lou Gerstner, IBM’s chairman and CEO from 1993 to 2002, passed away yesterday,” said Krishna in the e-mail.
He noted that Gerstner arrived at IBM at a moment when the company’s future was uncertain.
“The industry was changing rapidly, our business was under pressure, and there was serious debate about whether IBM should even remain whole. His leadership during that period reshaped the company. Not by looking backward, but by focusing relentlessly on what our clients would need next.”
According to Krishna, one of Gerstner’s earliest signals as CEO has become part of IBM lore. “Early on, he stopped a long internal presentation and said, simply, ‘Let’s just talk’. The message was clear: less inward focus, more real discussion, and much closer attention to customers. That mindset would define his tenure.”
He did not disclose the cause of death of the former CEO.
“Lou believed one of IBM’s central problems was that we had become optimized around our own processes, debates, and structures rather than around client outcomes. As he later put it, the company had lost sight of a basic truth of business: understanding the customer and delivering what the customer actually values,” Krishna added.
“That insight drove real change. Meetings became more direct. Decisions were grounded more in facts and client impact than in hierarchy or tradition. Innovation mattered if it could translate into something clients would come to rely on. Execution in the quarter and the year mattered, but always in service of longer-term relevance.”
