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From Struggle to Significance: Unleashing the Power of Good
Virginia "Ginni" Rometty's journey from a broken home to becoming IBM's first female CEO is more than just another corporate success story. When her father abandoned the family just before Thanksgiving, leaving her mother with four children and no financial support, it could have been a story of despair. Instead, it became the foundation for understanding what Rometty calls "good power" - the ability to drive positive change through influence rather than force. This memoir has resonated with readers far beyond the business world, earning praise from Oprah Winfrey who called it "a masterclass in authentic leadership" and former President Barack Obama who highlighted it as "essential reading for anyone seeking to make a difference." The book's exploration of how power can be wielded for collective benefit rather than personal gain offers a refreshing counterpoint in today's polarized landscape, showing how one woman's journey from adversity to influence can illuminate a path forward for businesses and society alike.
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The Crucible of Character: How Early Hardship Shapes Leadership
When Ginni Rometty's father walked out on their family, telling her desperate mother, "I'll never give you anything. For all I care, you can work on the street," he unknowingly set the stage for a powerful lesson in resilience. Her mother's response-taking community college classes while working two jobs-demonstrated that individuals have the power to create opportunity despite devastating circumstances. This early experience planted the seeds of what would become Rometty's philosophy of "good power"-using influence to unite people for shared purpose and motivate their best selves.
Rometty's family history was defined by resilient women who modeled independence and determination. Her great-grandmother Solemia escaped war-torn Belarus to clean Chicago's Wrigley Building at night after becoming a widow. Her grandmother Mary successfully ran a lamp shop after losing two husbands. These women embodied the American work ethic and principles of service and resilience that would later define Rometty's leadership approach.
As the eldest child following her father's abandonment, Rometty became the family caretaker-cooking meals, attending her siblings' school meetings, and helping with homework. The family's survival depended on community support: an uncle sometimes paid their mortgage, neighbors provided jobs and care, and teachers offered encouragement. Through it all, her mother showed them how to reject victimhood and embrace self-reliance, a lesson that shaped all their lives as they channeled energy into academics and sports.
This foundation of resilience became particularly important when Rometty pursued higher education. Despite financial challenges, she was accepted to Northwestern University, cobbling together financial aid, scholarships, loans, and gifts from relatives to cover the $6,500 annual cost. Feeling out of place among wealthier students, she adapted by working night shifts at the post office during summers. Initially pursuing medicine, she discovered computer science and engineering instead, developing a problem-solving approach that involved breaking challenges into manageable pieces.
Her personal life took a meaningful turn when she met Mark Rometty on a blind date during her GM internship. They connected deeply through conversation, sharing similar backgrounds-Mark had lost his father at ten and helped support his family from a young age. His principled character and unwavering support proved crucial when Rometty grew restless at GM, realizing she wanted work that engaged both her engineering skills and her heart. With Mark's encouragement, she interviewed at IBM in 1981, beginning a forty-year journey applying technology to meaningful problems.
These formative experiences instilled three core beliefs that would guide Rometty throughout her career: access to opportunities like education and employment unleashes potential; the ability to learn new skills throughout life is invaluable; and individuals possess the power to create positive change. The "power of me" represents our choice to activate our talents rather than accepting the status quo-a principle that would eventually expand into the "power of we" and ultimately "the power of us" as Rometty's influence grew.
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The Art of Service: Putting Others' Needs First
Early in her consulting career, Rometty learned a fundamental truth about service when a CEO client asked for her highlighted report rather than the dense full version she'd prepared. The realization hit her: time is someone's most valuable asset, and you must give value in return. This insight became central to her leadership philosophy.
Being "in service of" means fulfilling others' needs before or alongside our own, with the intention of helping them realize their potential-what Rometty calls the soul of good power. This differs from merely "serving," as it focuses on creating an experience rather than just completing a transaction. It's not a means to an end but a means itself, manifested in preparation, interaction, and follow-up.
As a consultant, Rometty learned to deliver value by extracting the "ah-ha"-developing strategic recommendations beyond just analysis. She discovered three possible responses to client problems: reiterating the problem (showing we listened), pivoting to our products (transactional), or engaging in collaborative dialogue that integrates the client's needs with expertise to create original solutions and establish trust.
Preparation became essential to her approach. "You must be prepared to dance when your team cannot," one boss told her. She adopted the mantra "think, prepare, rehearse" and researched extensively before meetings to understand where companies had been, what they were doing, and where they wanted to go. This ruthless preparation helped her overcome gender bias and impostor syndrome while making her more capable of serving clients.
From IBM CEO Lou Gerstner, she learned that no one is above homework-even as chief executive, he researched diligently before client meetings. Listening with intent to learn proved crucial; as Ed Liddy of Allstate said, "The good Lord gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason." Through listening, she gained knowledge that bred credibility and earned trust.
Rometty became a student of compelling communications by analyzing great speakers. She observed that the best talks had simple structures-often in three parts-with key messages infused with stories, vulnerability, and wit. She embraced the scientifically proven "rule of three" to make ideas approachable and memorable, forcing herself to edit down to the most essential points. When faced with technical concepts from brilliant colleagues, she asked questions until she understood enough to explain them with clear language and analogies.
As her career progressed, she transitioned from focusing solely on building her own skills to developing others-a signal of moving from "power of me" to "power of we." When running IBM's worldwide insurance business in the late 1990s, she organized their first global conference, personally teaching for nearly ninety minutes despite the challenges of addressing an audience with many non-native English speakers. Her personal commitment to their development was appreciated, as evidenced by a gift she later received with a note: "In appreciation of great days... your highly motivated and energized sherpas."
Gradually, Rometty recognized her role as a female role model in business, whether she wanted it or not. After giving a speech in Australia, a man told her he wished his daughter could have been there-a moment that made her realize she was being viewed through a dual lens. Though she initially resisted being seen as a "female" role model rather than just for her work, she came to understand that her actions had implications both personally and for women in business broadly. As her career grew, her opportunity and responsibility to be in service of various groups grew too, with her influence rippling outward.
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Building Belief: The Heart of Transformative Leadership
In July 2002, Rometty faced one of her greatest leadership challenges: helping negotiate IBM's acquisition of PricewaterhouseCoopers' consulting unit (PwCC). As head of IBM Global Services Americas, she saw exciting potential in combining PwCC's business strategy expertise with IBM's technology capabilities. However, the challenges were daunting: convincing PwCC's twelve hundred partner-owners to vote for becoming IBM employees despite major cultural differences, and successfully integrating two very different organizations without losing talent and client relationships.
Building belief-moving people to embrace an alternate reality and willingly participate in creating it-became essential. This wasn't about ordering people to do something they didn't believe in, but winning voluntary, enthusiastic buy-in that unleashes discretionary effort. Effective belief-building combines emotional connection with information, honesty, and clarity, bridging emotion and execution through both facts and feelings.
Rometty approached the PwCC acquisition as a merger rather than simply absorbing the company. She assembled a 600-person transition team with equal representation from both companies to collaborate on the new organization. They took an "adopt and go" approach for quick decisions while tackling complex dilemmas by finding third-way solutions rather than compromises. She deliberately placed PwCC leaders in top positions reporting to her, adopted their partner matriculation process and industry-focused market approach, and preserved the partner title.
To build belief in the merger, she traveled globally to meet PwCC partners, explaining how joining IBM would benefit them and their clients. She emphasized that IBM had been preparing to expand into strategic consulting and that together they could achieve more than either company alone. She invited partners to her home in Detroit, showing her personal commitment by staking her career on the merger's success. By October, PwCC member firms overwhelmingly approved the acquisition.
Following Ken Chenault's leadership principle to "define reality and give hope," Rometty faced the challenge of maintaining momentum as profit margins shrank when clients negotiated lower fees to meet quarterly targets. Rather than passing pressure down through bullying, she honestly acknowledged struggles with her team and brought in outside help, realizing that asking for assistance shows strength, not weakness. She implemented necessary operational rigor with transparency about disappointments and the disciplined changes needed to succeed. Despite some leaders' disbelief in their ability to meet operating targets, she made necessary personnel changes while highlighting successes to maintain morale. Through persistent effort and focus on client service, by 2008 their consulting business reached $19.5 billion in revenue with $2.7 billion in profit, fundamentally transforming IBM.
In March 2011, following Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami, many foreign companies evacuated their expatriate employees, earning them the derogatory label "flyjin." With 20,000 IBM employees in Tokyo and surrounding areas serving essential institutions, Rometty made evacuation voluntary, and most chose to stay. She personally volunteered to visit Tokyo, arriving at a deserted airport. At IBM's Tokyo office, she witnessed remarkable stories of dedication-employees swimming through floodwaters to deliver computer parts and distributing supplies to clients and colleagues. Japanese clients expressed profound appreciation for IBM's presence when other companies had fled, particularly valuing that a senior executive had flown in rather than out. This act of presence spoke louder than any words of condolence could have.
After months of media speculation, Rometty was selected as IBM's ninth chief executive in October 2011-the first woman in the company's hundred-year history. On her first official day as CEO, January 3, 2012, she chose to broadcast from IBM's research labs rather than her office, symbolizing the importance of innovation. She introduced their aspiration to "Be Essential" and outlined three strategic beliefs: they were entering a new computing era driven by data, cloud, and AI; their clients were changing, with technology decisions now made beyond just CIOs; and IBMers themselves needed to evolve with new skills and ways of working.
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Navigating Transformation: Balancing Change and Continuity
As IBM's CEO, Rometty faced the existential challenge of reinventing a century-old company amid rapid technological shifts. With competitors like Amazon and Google disrupting the industry, IBM needed a new technology platform while maintaining its core identity. This transformation required difficult decisions about what to preserve and what to reimagine, all while managing $100 billion in revenues, over 350,000 employees, and operations in 170+ countries under intense market scrutiny.
Knowing what must change versus what must endure became the brain of good power-bridging old and new to create something better. Transformation isn't simply becoming X instead of Y, but navigating tensions between integrating old and new, balancing expectations with reality, and reconciling market pace with organizational capacity.
Divesting IBM's semiconductor manufacturing business exemplified the painful choices needed for reinvention. After 60 years of pioneering chip design and production, manufacturing had become unsustainably capital-intensive. Rather than spend $10 billion retooling foundries, they kept the mission-critical R&D while divesting manufacturing. Between 2012-2020, IBM divested $9 billion in annual revenue across five major businesses, redirecting capital to new-era products.
A conversation with Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson crystallized Rometty's approach to IBM's transformation. When she called to pitch a small marketing software project, Sorenson reminded her: "Be the best IBM you can be." Drawing on Thomas Watson Jr.'s wisdom that an organization must be prepared to change everything except its core beliefs, she recognized that "being essential" was their unique strength. This meant focusing on mission-critical systems that clients couldn't live without, rather than trying to mimic competitors.
IBM's financial roadmap, with its commitment to double-digit earnings-per-share growth, had become unsustainable. In 2014, Rometty made the difficult decision to abandon this roadmap to increase investments in cloud, AI, cybersecurity, and mobile computing. The stock dropped more than 10% when they announced this change, as EPS was no longer guaranteed. Some investors urged her to continue massive share buybacks, while others recognized the necessity of remaking the company for long-term viability.
Rometty made commercializing Watson (AI) and becoming a leader in cloud computing IBM's two strategic bets to restructure the portfolio. For cloud computing, they developed a unique viewpoint: not everyone would move all computing to public clouds. For mission-critical applications, three types were necessary: public, private, and hybrid. They built their own private cloud, then developed a hybrid cloud platform that connected applications across public clouds, private clouds, and on-premise systems with enhanced security. This strategy culminated in their largest-ever software acquisition-Red Hat for $34 billion in 2018.
Transforming what IBM did wasn't enough-they also needed to change how they worked. Two weeks before becoming CEO, a Christmas interaction with Rometty's five-year-old nephew who intuitively used an iPad revealed their consumability challenge: IBM needed to create enterprise technology with consumer-level ease of use. Working with colleagues, they implemented design thinking throughout IBM, reversing their engineering-led approach to start with user problems rather than technical solutions. They built design studios globally, hired 5,000 designers, and trained tens of thousands of consultants in this methodology. Simultaneously, they adopted agile development methods, bringing together small teams to rapidly test ideas before scaling them.
To measure if their efforts were actually improving client experiences, they adopted Net Promoter Score (NPS), which randomly asked clients two simple questions right after using their products: "How likely are you to recommend this product or service on a scale of 0-10?" and "Why or why not?" The methodology required immediate follow-up with dissatisfied clients. By 2020, IBM's overall NPS score had a twenty-point gain, catapulting them into the top quartile in the industry.
Reskilling their workforce was imperative as only two out of ten IBMers had the tech skills needed for their future. They made forty hours of annual education mandatory and created Think Academy with monthly learning sessions that Rometty personally taught for four years. They accelerated learning through immersive experiences and built an AI-powered learning management system that showed employees their skills, what they needed, and recommended personalized learning paths.
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Technology with Conscience: The Ethics of Innovation
In June 2013, just eighteen months into Rometty's tenure as CEO, Edward Snowden leaked classified documents revealing PRISM, a US government program collecting data from tech companies to track potential terrorism connections. Though IBM wasn't named in the documents, they faced immediate fallout as foreign governments and organizations began questioning how they secured data, where they stored it, and whether they allowed US government access.
Stewarding good tech means taking responsibility for technology's creation, application, and disruption through values-based decisions that consider long-term impacts and all stakeholders. Even non-tech companies use technology and must make choices about how they wield it. Society gives businesses license to operate, and that license can be revoked if trust erodes. Technology can harm societies when unchecked or misused, requiring trade-offs between convenience and protection.
For Rometty, trust is about intention-not to harm others, to hold confidences, and to live up to promises. Trust isn't about perfection but consistency with values. After PRISM, IBM's history of acting according to their beliefs became an asset. When Senator Portman asked for support on legislation holding companies liable for knowingly facilitating child sex trafficking online, their values made the decision clear. But values-based decisions can be murky, as when Rometty joined President Trump's Strategy and Policy Forum. She approached it as duty to engage on policy over politics, but later disbanded with other CEOs after Charlottesville when the president's response violated their values.
Frustrated by rising distrust in technology, Rometty advocated for "precision regulation" that would recognize differences between tech companies rather than treating the sector monolithically. Like precision medicine, this approach wouldn't treat the tech sector as one body with broad-brush policies, but would account for differences in specific technologies, their uses, and unique risk profiles.
In 2016, when a transgender employee expressed discomfort traveling to North Carolina due to discriminatory legislation, Rometty took immediate action. IBM denounced North Carolina's "bathroom bill" and fought similar legislation in Texas, where they had their second-largest workforce. She personally called Governor Abbott, making it clear she would reduce IBM investments if such legislation passed. By 2020, IBM had achieved best-in-class inclusion scores and record diversity, with 88% of employees saying they could be their authentic selves at work.
In 2012, IBM faced a severe shortage of qualified candidates for hundreds of cybersecurity roles-part of a broader "digital divide" affecting all companies seeking tech talent while millions struggled to find good jobs. After meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres in 2014, his observation that "companies do more to develop countries than governments, as they know no boundaries" reinforced Rometty's belief that businesses have a responsibility to prepare society for the digital era.
In 2019, Rometty joined Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky at the New York Times DealBook Conference to discuss the Business Roundtable's controversial new statement on "The Purpose of a Corporation." The statement, representing 181 US companies, committed to leading businesses for the benefit of all stakeholders-customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders (notably listed last). When interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin suggested this devalued shareholders, she emphasized that stakeholder relationships are "and, not either/or" and that commercial and societal value aren't mutually exclusive.
Today, capitalist societies stand at a precarious crossroads. The tenets of stewarding good tech-building trust, championing inclusion, and preparing society-permeate everything leaders do, with our choices defining our shared future. The greatest tension lies in balancing short-term rewards against long-term effects, as negative consequences like privacy loss or economic exclusion manifest more slowly than immediate gains.
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The Wellspring of Resilience: Relationships and Attitude
Resilience has been Rometty's foundation when facing setbacks, conflict, crisis, and critics. It stems primarily from two factors within our control: relationships and attitude. The right relationships provide perspective-helping us judge importance and see broader angles-while fueling our energy and providing support. Attitude determines how we handle challenges in crucial moments and over time.
Genuine relationships provided Rometty perspective and helped her creatively solve problems. Her most treasured bonds are with family and friends, keeping her grounded regardless of professional outcomes. Despite busy lives, her siblings and she maintain strong connections through regular communication and traditions-like their 25-year tradition of Thanksgiving gatherings, Grandma Mary's Christmas cookies, and annual Labor Day visits.
Most significantly, her husband Mark has been her foundation for over 45 years, never resenting her career demands while remaining playful, curious, and authentic. His humor lightens her stress, and he provides honest perspective without harsh judgment. They maintained their relationship through intention and sacrifice-she kept their Detroit home base while traveling extensively, and they promised never to spend more than two weeks apart. Mark relieved her of many burdens by handling household decisions, sometimes independently buying things like their house.
Networks are built over time through genuine interest in people and by sharing knowledge. Rometty's expanded network included leaders across business, academia, government, media, and entertainment worldwide who provided invaluable perspectives at crucial moments. The bonds she formed with other women CEOs were particularly meaningful-each offering unique strengths like Mary Barra's authenticity, Indra Nooyi's conviction, Ellen Kullman's resilience, Marillyn Hewson's purpose, and Ursula Burns' community impact.
Rometty's upbringing taught her not to see herself as a victim but to take responsibility for her actions and choices. Watching her grandmother, great-grandmother, and mother survive losing their husbands without bitterness showed her that she could control her reaction to life's challenges. Her guiding principle became: "There's always a way forward, so put all your energy into that. Tomorrow can always be better than today."
When facing conflict, she learned to run toward it rather than let it drain her energy. Addressing issues directly-whether interpersonal disagreements or international tensions over data security and privacy-proved more productive than avoidance. As CEO of IBM, she approached conflicts with national leaders by clearly communicating issues and framing discussions in terms of their agendas, which usually led to progress.
She also learned to compartmentalize crises, not letting emotions from one meeting spill into the next. She understood that as a leader, her reactions cascade to others, so she chose to express frustration but then focus on moving forward. During IBM's transformation, she faced public criticism but maintained conviction that they were building a better company, celebrating milestones even when they didn't make headlines.
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Creating Pathways to Opportunity: The SkillsFirst Revolution
When Rometty envisions what's possible for our world, she reflects on her own journey from "me to we to us" that began in her youth. Her mother's transformation after learning computer skills at community college showed her how education could provide dignity and stability. Her own path through Northwestern University and General Motors demonstrated that access, not aptitude, is often the barrier to a better life.
In 2012, her first year as CEO, Rometty was frustrated by IBM's struggle to fill hundreds of tech and cybersecurity positions despite high unemployment rates. Around the same time, a ninth-grader named Gabriel Rosa hacked into his high school computer in Brooklyn. Instead of expelling him, his principal channeled Gabriel's talents into P-TECH, a six-year program IBM designed that combined high school with community college courses in STEM fields and paid internships.
When President Obama highlighted P-TECH in his 2013 State of the Union address, more governors began calling IBM to learn more. The P-TECH model eventually expanded to over 300 schools in 27 countries, with 200 college partners and 600 business partners, creating opportunities for 150,000 students. Gabriel Rosa graduated with a diploma, associate degree, and full-time IBM position, proving that zip code doesn't determine aptitude.
IBM also created apprenticeships for roles that traditionally required degrees. Tony Byrd, who worked at an IBM campus coffee shop, was encouraged to apply for their new apprenticeship program-a full-time, paid opportunity to train as a software engineer through on-the-job experience, coursework, and coaching. By 2022, they had created programs for 24 different roles across 16 states, with 90% of the 500+ apprentices becoming full-time employees.
When Rometty's sister contemplated returning to work after years caring for her family, she worried her skills were outdated despite her engineering degree, MBA, and experience. This conversation prompted IBM to launch "returnships"-three-month paid tech reentry programs for people who had left the workforce for up to ten years. By 2022, about 150 people had participated across eleven countries, with the majority being hired full-time by IBM.
These stories illustrate larger systemic problems in our economy. Since the late 1970s, median earnings have stagnated despite productivity increasing 66 percent, with compensation rising only 9 percent-creating "the great divergence." This polarization of jobs has produced a "barbell effect" with increases in both low and high-paying jobs while middle-income jobs have disappeared.
When Rometty discovered that one of their business units struggling to fill cybersecurity positions had hired only three P-TECH graduates because job postings required four-year degrees, she realized they needed to change. They began scrutinizing job requisitions, rewriting them to emphasize specific skills rather than academic qualifications. Despite skepticism from colleagues concerned about lowering standards, they measured performance and found non-degreed hires initially took longer to acclimate but soon produced business results equal to or better than degreed colleagues. By 2019, approximately 15% of IBM's new U.S. hires lacked four-year degrees, and by 2021, less than half of their U.S. job openings required bachelor's degrees-down from 90% in 2016.
SkillsFirst means valuing people's actual skills rather than just their degrees. This approach opens doors for individuals at all career stages: entry-level workers gain access to upwardly mobile jobs, mid-career professionals find new paths, and employers tap larger, more diverse talent pools without sacrificing performance. In a SkillsFirst world, education isn't a one-time achievement but a continuous journey, with learning agility and growth mindsets becoming highly prized assets.
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From Personal Power to Collective Impact
In May 2020, while quarantining during the pandemic as IBM's Executive Chairman, Rometty witnessed the murder of George Floyd alongside the rest of the nation. Business leaders looked inward, questioning how they were addressing racial inequities in their companies and whether they were wielding power effectively. The data revealed stark disparities: Black individuals are twice as likely to live in poverty as white people, with the average Black family's net worth at $17,000 compared to $171,000 for white families-gaps that worsened during the pandemic.
Creating positive change at society's scale represents the ultimate use of good power-the power of us. Ken Frazier delivered a powerful call to action: "We should do what business does best, provide jobs." Rometty realized that her operational experience with SkillsFirst hiring could help make this vision reality, especially given that 75% of Black Americans between 18-35 lack college degrees while 75% of family-sustaining jobs require them.
In summer 2020, Frazier and Rometty proposed forming a coalition of employers committed to hiring Black individuals without four-year degrees into upwardly mobile middle-class jobs. By December 2020, nearly forty major companies committed to their ambitious goal: hiring one million Black individuals without four-year degrees into family-sustaining jobs over ten years. They renamed their initiative "OneTen" and announced it on CBS This Morning with Gayle King. Soon over sixty major corporations joined, each identifying positions that paid family-sustaining wages without requiring degrees.
Cleveland Clinic joined OneTen because traditional recruitment wasn't filling their hundreds of open positions. Dr. Melissa Burrows, leading their talent search, embraced the SkillsFirst approach and sent her team door-to-door in Cleveland's poorest neighborhoods. They visited about 400 homes, finding residents shocked to learn they could qualify for good jobs with benefits that they'd assumed were out of reach due to lacking degrees. Under CEO Dr. Tom Mihaljevic, the clinic embraced skills-based hiring, rewriting 2,700 job descriptions, launching apprenticeship programs, and training 3,000 managers to be more inclusive. They exceeded their goal of hiring 500 Black caregivers by nearly double in 2021.
Looking back, Rometty sees championing SkillsFirst as the natural culmination of her life experiences. Her youth taught her "the power of me" to create positive change, showing how education and employment unlock potential. As her career advanced, she discovered "the power of we" and the good power principles that drive change. These principles ladder up over time through experience and practice, helping navigate the tensions inherent in leadership and bringing big ideas to life.
Whatever change you seek-for your life, work, or our world-you'll face discomfort, but don't let that stop you. As Rometty urges readers: "Go for it now! Our world needs you to 'be the storm.'"
