Top 113 Quotes & Sayings by Ginni Rometty
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American businesswoman Ginni Rometty.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
I've been head of strategy at IBM and together with my colleagues built our five-year plan. My priorities are going to be to continue to execute on that.
Whatever business you're in - it doesn't matter - it's going to commoditize over time. It's going to devalue. You've got to keep moving it to a higher value.
When you remove layers, simplicity and speed happen.
We have started something called the Corporate Services Corps. Now, it was modeled after the Peace Corps from long ago, the 1960s. And the idea was in this modern day and age, how do you get IBM'ers around the world to be global citizens? You know, globally aware, contribute, understand how to work in that environment, but do it on scale.
I have a great job at a great company.
I strongly believe that through dedication and perseverance, one can overcome adversity to achieve success. It is a privilege to accept membership in the Horatio Alger Association, an organization which promotes this principle.
And the reason I came to IBM was I think - I always say at a really early age, I learned you've got to be passionate about what you do. No matter what it is, you put too much, your heart and soul in it, you have to be passionate about it. You make too many sacrifices.
The ability to please your shareholders comes because of what you do for clients.
I ask everyone's opinion when they don't speak up. And then when they have an opinion, I'll ask others to talk about it.
No matter what it is, you put too much, your heart and soul in it, you have to be passionate about it. You make too many sacrifices.
To me, I learned along the way, you know, culture is behavior. That's all it is; culture is people's behaviors.
This idea of 'New Collar' says for the jobs of the future here, there are many in technology that can be done without a four-year college degree and, therefore, 'New Collar' not 'Blue Collar,' 'White Collar.' It's 'New Collar.'
I make time to exercise. It's not being indulgent. I think it's got a lot to do with your ability to manage properly and stay focused. There's no doubt about that.
Artificial intelligence is one of 50 things that Watson does. There is also machine learning, text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and different analytical engines - they're like little Lego bricks. You can put intelligence in any product or any process you have.
It's easy to have an act one and two. Go ahead and have an act three, four, and five. The saying is the easy part. The doing is the hard part.
You define yourself by either what your clients want or what you believe they'll need for the future. So: Define yourself by your client, not your competitor.
I think, particularly in our tech industry, this is an industry that has violent innovation and then commoditization, and it's a cycle of innovation/commoditization.
As I say to our own team: 'Never protect your past, never define yourself by a single product, and always continue to steward for the long-term. Keep moving towards the future.'
The amazing thing about IBM is that it's a company where I have had 10 different careers - local jobs, global jobs, technology jobs, industry jobs, financial services, insurance, start-ups, big scale. The network of talent around you is phenomenal.
You make the right decision for the long run. You manage for the long run, and you continue to move to higher value. That's what I think my job is.
And so when I moved to IBM, I moved because I thought I could apply technology. I didn't actually have to do my engineer - I was an electrical engineer, but I could apply it. And that was when I changed. And when I got there, though, I have to say, at the time, I really never felt there was a constraint about being a woman. I really did not.
We should prepare our future workforce differently. It isn't just advanced STEM degrees. There are many jobs you can do without advanced degrees.
Growth and comfort do not coexist.
Never love something so much that you can't let go of it.
The recommendation when I'm mentoring folks, I always tell them - and we talked about this last year - take a risk.
Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we'll augment our intelligence.
So what it means is when you don't believe in the inevitable, it means you don't expect that that's how things have to turn out. You can change them.
Someone once told me growth and comfort do not coexist. And I think it's a really good thing to remember.
Be first and be lonely.
If you step back and look at technology from every era, it has displaced jobs but also created a lot of jobs.
I've made lots of mistakes. Probably the worst one - I would say they tie. It's either when I didn't move fast enough on something, or I didn't take a big enough risk.
I learned to always take on things I'd never done before.
I've got a distribution system that goes to 170 countries. If I acquire properly, you know, you may be successful in one or two countries, or one place; I can scale, and that's part of the value that IBM brings.
You have to stick up for what you believe in. And that, to me, is the biggest thing you can do about driving inclusion.
I never look at an acquisition really by size.
You need to have a great support around you, people that empathise, understand and yet support, because these CEO jobs are all-consuming.
I think 'Actions speak louder than words' is one thing, I think, I always took from my mom. And to this day, I think about that in everything I do.
I always say, you know, if I sit here and close my eyes and say, 'When did I learn the most in my life, in my career?' It'll always be when I close them and everything I think of is when I took a risk. It's when I think I learned the most.
I don't think anybody's just B2B or B2C anymore. You are B2I - business to individual.
What has always made IBM a fascinating and compelling place for me is the passion of the company, and its people, to apply technology and scientific thinking to major societal issues.
I am very practical.
One day we're going to look back, and whatever this era will get called, it's going to put a premium on math and science.
My mom had not worked a day in her life, and then she woke up when I was 15 and found herself with four children, no job, no money. But she set out and made it all OK for us, and from that, I saw that there's no problem that can't be solved.
The only way you survive is you continuously transform into something else. It's this idea of continuous transformation that makes you an innovation company.
You've got to keep reinventing. You'll have new competitors. You'll have new customers all around you.
Today when I think about diversity, I actually think about the word 'inclusion.' And I think this is a time of great inclusion. It's not men, it's not women alone. Whether it's geographic, it's approach, it's your style, it's your way of learning, the way you want to contribute, it's your age - it is really broad.
Every day I get to 'Think' and work on everything from digitizing electric grids so they can accommodate renewable energy and enable mass adoption of electric cars, helping major cities reduce congestion and pollution, to developing new micro-finance programs that help tiny businesses get started in markets such as Brazil, India, Africa.
Every part of your business will change based on what I consider predictive analytics of the future.
If it's digital, it will be cognitive. If you think that, you're going to change the way you run a business.
I think, given who the IBM target company is, I feel our purpose is to be essential to our clients.
What I knew was I liked math and science, and I never wanted to memorize everything. I wanted to understand where it came from.
Clients say, 'What's your strategy,' and I say, 'Ask me what I believe first.' That's a far more enduring answer.
If you're clear on what you believe, you have a great foundation to go make a market.
IBM's long-standing mantra is 'Think.' What has always made IBM a fascinating and compelling place for me, is the passion of the company, and its people, to apply technology and scientific thinking to major societal issues.
I'm the kid that tried to take Latin in school because I felt if I could understand the root of everything, then I could understand why it worked. That was what took me into engineering. And the reason I stayed is, engineering teaches you to solve problems. It teaches you to think.
Don't let others define you. You define yourself.
You will have many more goals in the years ahead. But do not confuse a goal with a purpose.
IBM existed a good 50 years before mainframes - we started with scales.
I believe that the idea of strategic beliefs may be more important than strategic planning when thinking about how you keep the long view.
Don't protect your past. Don't protect your products.
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