Ginni Rometty, 1st female CEO at IBM, to step down in April

ARMONK, N.Y. (AP) - Ginni Rometty, the first female CEO in IBM's century-long history, is leaving the helm in April.

Rometty, 62, will remain IBM's executive chairwoman until the end of the year. Her departure caps nearly 40 years with a technology giant famous for its conservative corporate culture. Rometty became IBM CEO eight years ago after previously overseeing sales and marketing.

IBM said Thursday that Arvind Krishna will take over as CEO starting April 6. He has been IBM's senior vice president for cloud computing and cognitive software and also has a long career at the company.

IBM has been trying to revitalize its business to become a leader in cloud technology. Cloud computing, in which services are delivered over the internet from remote computers, has become a growing portion of IBM's revenue. But the company has been overshadowed by top cloud rivals Amazon, Microsoft and Google in competing to sell its internet-based computing services to businesses.

In a risky effort to catch up to the competition, IBM announced in 2018 that it planned to spend $34 billion to buy North Carolina-based software company Red Hat. It was the biggest acquisition in IBM's century-long history -- one which the company says Krishna was a "principal architect" in making happen.