IBM taps former Bank of America CTO to oversee cloud business

(Reuters) – International Business Machines Corp on Monday named former Bank of America Corp top technology executive Howard Boville head of its cloud business, as Arvind Krishna takes over from long-time chief Ginni Rometty.

Arvind, known by his first name, headed the Big Blue’s fast-growing cloud business before his elevation as chief executive officer in late-January.

As chief technology officer of Bank of America, Boville was responsible for building and running the second largest U.S. bank’s cloud services.

IBM said in November it had created a financial services-specific cloud technology in collaboration with Bank of America.

Arvind, the key architect of IBM’s $34 billion Red Hat acquisition last year, made the announcements in a letter to employees as he took charge on Monday.

The company also appointed Paul Cormier as the new chief executive officer of Red Hat, succeeding Jim Whitehurst, who was named IBM’s president in late-January.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)