ARMONK, N.Y., Dec. 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — The next is the textual content of an e mail despatched in the present day to all IBM staff by Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna:
Lou Gerstner
IBMers,
I’m saddened to share that Lou Gerstner, IBM’s Chairman and CEO from 1993 to 2002, handed away yesterday.
Lou arrived at IBM at a second when the corporate’s future was genuinely unsure. The trade was altering quickly, our enterprise was underneath strain, and there was critical debate about whether or not IBM ought to even stay entire. His management throughout that interval reshaped the corporate. Not by trying backward, however by focusing relentlessly on what our shoppers would want subsequent.
Considered one of Lou’s earliest indicators as CEO has develop into a part of IBM lore. Early on, he stopped an extended inside presentation and stated, merely, “Let’s simply discuss.” The message was clear: much less inward focus, extra actual dialogue, and far nearer consideration to prospects. That mindset would outline his tenure.
Lou believed one in every of IBM’s central issues was that we had develop into optimized round our personal processes, debates, and constructions slightly than round shopper outcomes. As he later put it, the corporate had overpassed a primary fact of enterprise: understanding the shopper and delivering what the shopper truly values.
That perception drove actual change. Conferences turned extra direct. Choices had been grounded extra in details and shopper influence than in hierarchy or custom. Innovation mattered if it might translate into one thing shoppers would come to depend on. Execution within the quarter and the 12 months mattered, however at all times in service of longer-term relevance.
Lou made what could have been essentially the most consequential choice in IBM’s fashionable historical past: to maintain IBM collectively. On the time, the corporate was organized into many separate companies, every pursuing its personal path. Lou understood that shoppers didn’t need fragmented expertise—they wished built-in options. That conviction formed IBM’s evolution and reestablished our relevance for lots of the world’s largest enterprises.
Lou additionally understood that technique alone wouldn’t be sufficient. He believed lasting change required a shift in tradition—in how folks behave when nobody is watching. What mattered was what IBMers valued, how actually they confronted actuality, and the way keen they had been to problem themselves and one another. Fairly than discard IBM’s long-standing values, he pushed the corporate to resume them to fulfill the calls for of a really totally different period.
I’ve my very own reminiscence of Lou from the mid-Nineties, at a small city corridor with just a few hundred folks. What stood out was his depth and focus. He had an means to carry the quick time period and the long run in his head on the identical time. He pushed laborious on supply, however he was equally centered on innovation: doing work that shoppers would bear in mind, not simply devour.
Lou stayed engaged with IBM lengthy after his tenure ended. From my first days as CEO, he was beneficiant with recommendation—however at all times cautious in how he gave it. He would supply perspective, then say, “I’ve been gone a very long time—I’m right here when you want me.” He listened carefully to what others had been saying about IBM and mirrored it again candidly.
That impartial, skilled voice mattered to me, and I used to be lucky to study from Lou on a common foundation.
Lou was direct. He anticipated preparation. He challenged assumptions. However he was deeply dedicated to constructing an organization that would adapt—culturally as a lot as strategically—with out dropping its core values.
Lou’s influence prolonged nicely past IBM. Earlier than becoming a member of the corporate, he had already constructed a unprecedented profession—turning into one of many youngest companions at McKinsey & Firm, later serving as president of American Categorical and CEO of RJR Nabisco. After IBM, he went on to chair The Carlyle Group and devoted important time and sources to philanthropy, significantly in schooling and biomedical analysis. A local of Lengthy Island, NY, Lou earned his undergraduate diploma from Dartmouth and an MBA from Harvard, and he remained deeply dedicated to his household all through his life. Lou was preceded in loss of life by his son Louis Gerstner III.
We’ll maintain a celebration within the new 12 months to mirror on Lou’s legacy and what his management enabled at IBM.
My ideas are with Lou’s spouse Robin, his daughter Elizabeth, his grandchildren and prolonged household, in addition to his many buddies, colleagues, and other people world wide who had been formed by his management and his work.
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