Bangalore: IBM has announced recently that its President and CEO, Virginia Rometty will be appointed as Chairman on October 1.

Rometty will be the first woman to head the company and IBM’s ninth CEO. She was elected by the board of directors that voted in favor. As a chairman, Rometty will succeed IBM’s former CEO, Sam Palmisano.

Rometty had joined IBM in 1981 as a system engineer and became a member of its consulting group in 1991. She is being credited with IBM’s growth strategy over the years and is seen as a leading reason behind IBM getting into cloud computing and analytics businesses.

Over the years Romeety has been working in IBM she has held a number of positions including some of the top positions in IBM’s sales and service units.

Rometty is already a member of IBM’s Board of Directors which will be reduced to 13 members after Plamisano steps down as the Chairman.