IBM女掌门人展望未来

    吉尼•罗曼提走马上任后召开的第一次客户大会就非比寻常，尤其是与“蓝色巨人”之前沉默内敛的风格相对比更是如此。当时是六月份，会议召开的地点选在曼哈顿时尚的切尔西区。狭小的电梯载着我们来到会场时，电梯门一打开我们便看到了罗曼提，几位明显非常紧张的助理簇拥在她身边。“真的很高兴见到你！”她一边说，一边热情地握着我的手，她的助手则在旁边不停看表。幻灯演示即将开始，可罗曼提还没有佩戴麦克风。她问道：“办的还算优雅吧？”

    活动开始的时间比预定计划要晚。55岁的罗曼提身高约1米6，一头金发用发带盘了起来，流露出一种威严的气度。但当天，她在登场的时候却搞了个乌龙，主持人还没介绍她，她便上了讲台。对此，她只是一笑置之。后来有一名观众的手机响了起来，打断了活动的进程，她开玩笑说：“希望不是我的手机在响！”

    我们之前从未见过郭士纳或者彭明盛会主动掩饰别人的失礼之举。而且，罗曼提的这两位前辈也不可能把销售会议的举办地放在阁楼里面，他们也不会用“优雅”来形容活动安排。但如果把他们放在那一天，他们肯定会批准罗曼提的安排。那次会议她召集了一些熟面孔，比如那些花数十亿美元从IBM采购软件、技术服务和硬件的首席信息官们。但同时她也邀请了客户公司的首席营销官。（这也是选择在如此时尚的场所举办会议的原因。）她有一个宏伟的、不同寻常的计划：让首席营销官们使用IBM的工具对他们的数据进行分类，找出其中有价值的信息，帮助他们更好的接触客户，销售更多产品。

    当罗曼提成为IBM第九任CEO时，她所掌管的公司收入规模在全球名列第19位（2011年公司销售额超过1,070亿美元。）而且，至本文截稿时，IBM的市值已经达到2,350亿美元，在全球名列第五。此外，她也是IBM史上第一位女性首席执行官。她对科技界的影响，以及她所领导的公司对金融市场的影响，让她在《财富》杂志（Fortune）一年一度的美国“最具影响力商界女性”（Most Powerful Women in Business）评选中，名列榜首。她接手的公司虽然规模庞大，但却始终保持令人羡慕的发展速度。过去十年间，公司利润平均每年增长16%，每年的投资回报率高达12%。

    但与此同时，她也必须达到各界对IBM近乎荒唐的高期望值：IBM曾经表示，在未来三年，公司收入将增长200亿美元。换句话说，这相当于整个耐克公司（Nike）的规模。

    作为一名在IBM工作了31年的老将，罗曼提每次开会之前都会准备厚厚一摞背景资料和数据，这已是广为人知的事。她对上述期望并不感到意外。实际上，她在上任后首次参加的客户大会上最令人意外的，是她的放松和即兴的表现。她并不拘谨，正如哈佛商学院（Harvard Business School）的罗莎贝斯•莫斯•坎特所说：“她身上没有流露出任何一丝傲慢或者专横。”但同时，罗曼提也很少会听天由命。比如，她拒绝了本文作者前往采访的请求，宁可通过电子邮件回答笔者的问题。

    彭明盛在IBM任职的十年间，罗曼提一直是他的忠实支持者，并在四年前正式成为接替彭明盛的继任者。她自己参与了IBM公司制定高标准的过程，如今风水轮流转，当时的高标准成了她必须清除的障碍。当时，她和其他高管帮助彭明盛制定了一个五年规划，即所谓的“2015年路线图”。这个五年规划的目标是，到2015年，公司收入超过1,250亿美元。

    Ginni Rometty's first customer conference as CEO of IBM (IBM) was an unusual affair, especially by Big Blue's buttoned-up standards. The June confab took place in an airy loft in Manhattan's hip Chelsea neighborhood. When the tiny elevator arrived to whisk a group of us to the meeting space, the doors opened and there was Rometty, flanked by a couple of visibly nervous assistants. "Really good to see you!" she said, clasping my hand warmly as her handlers checked their watches. The presentation was about to begin and Rometty still wasn't wearing her microphone. "Isn't this neat?" she asked.

    The program started late. At 5-foot-11, with blond hair tucked behind a headband, Rometty, 55, has an almost regal bearing, but on this day she flubbed her entrance, bounding onto the stage before she could be introduced. She laughed it off. When an audience member's ringing cellphone interrupted the events, she joked, "I hope that isn't mine!"

    You wouldn't catch Lou Gerstner or Sam Palmisano trying to smooth over someone else's faux pas. Rometty's two predecessors also are unlikely to have hosted a sales meeting in a loft, and they definitely wouldn't have described the proceedings as "neat." But they surely would have approved of Rometty's agenda that June day. She had assembled some familiar faces, the chief information officers who buy billions of dollars of software, tech services, and hardware from IBM (No. 19 on the Fortune 500), but she had also invited their chief marketing officers. (Thus the trendy venue.) Her ambitious -- and yes, unusual -- plan: Get the marketers to use IBM tools to sort their data for nuggets that will help them better reach customers and sell more stuff.

    When Rometty (pronounced RAH-metty) became IBM's ninth CEO -- and its first woman chief executive -- she took control of the 19th-largest company in the world by revenue (2011 sales surpassed $107 billion) and, at presstime, the fifth largest by valuation, with a market cap of $235 billion. Her influence on the world of technology and her company's impact on the financial markets earn her the No. 1 spot in Fortune's annual ranking of the Most Powerful Women in Business. She inherits a company with an enviable growth record for its enormous size. Over the past decade, the company has increased profits by an average 16% every year, returning 12% annually to shareholders.

    She also needs to live up to almost ridiculously high expectations: IBM has said it will add $20 billion more in revenue growth in the next three years. To put that in perspective, that's a business roughly the size of Nike (NKE), No. 136 on the Fortune 500.

    Not that any of this is a surprise to Rometty, a 31-year veteran of IBM who is known to have thick binders of background material and data prepared for her in advance of meetings. Indeed, the most surprising thing about her June customer debut was how loose and improvisational it was. She's not a stiff -- "There's nothing imperious or imperial about her," notes Harvard Business School's Rosabeth Moss Kanter -- but Rometty rarely leaves anything to chance. For example, she declined to be interviewed in person for this article, and would answer questions only via e-mail.

    Rometty was at Palmisano's side for much of his decade-long tenure, and became a serious candidate to succeed him about four years ago. And she was personally involved in setting the high bar that she must now clear. She and other senior leaders helped him develop the five-year plan -- dubbed "2015 Roadmap" -- that has IBM targeting more than $125 billion in revenue that year.