(Reuters) – Former IBM CEO and Chairman Louis Gerstner died on Saturday at the age of 83.
IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna announced Gerstner’s death in an email to employees on Sunday but did not provide a cause of death.
“Lou joined IBM at a time when the future of the company was truly uncertain,” Krishna said in an email. “His leadership during that period reshaped the company not by looking at the past, but by relentlessly focusing on what our customers needed next.”
After stints at American Express and consulting firm McKinsey, Gerstner moved to IBM from CEO of RJR Nabisco in April 1993, becoming the first outsider to run IBM’s Big Blue.
During his nine years at the helm of the computer giant, he is widely credited with turning around a company facing potential bankruptcy and pivoting it toward business services. He fundamentally changed IBM’s culture and focus while cutting expenses, selling assets and buying back stock.
Gerstner retired as CEO of IBM in 2002, when the company’s stock price rose about 800% from his tenure, and later became chairman of Carlyle Group until his retirement in 2008.
Gerstner, author of “Who Said Elephants Can’t Dance” and co-author of “Reinventing Education: Entrepreneurship in America’s Public Schools,” serves on the boards of directors of Bristol-Myers Squibb, The New York Times, American Express, AT&T and Caterpillar, among others.
Gerstner was passionate about American public education and launched an initiative at IBM to use the company’s technology in schools.
He established Gerstner Philanthropies, which includes the Gerstner Family Foundation, in 1989 with an emphasis on supporting biomedical research, environmental and educational programs and social services serving New York City, Boston and Palm Beach County, Florida.
(Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
