James Moon Whitehurst is an American business executive. He was the President at IBM and chair of the board at

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become ass ...

, and previously Chief Executive Officer at

and Chief Operating Officer at

Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines, Inc., typically referred to as Delta, is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. One of the List of airlines by foundation date, world's oldest airlines in operation, Delta is headquartered in Atla ...

. Prior to working at Delta in 2001, he served as Vice President and Director of the

Boston Consulting Group Boston Consulting Group, Inc. (BCG) is an American global management consulting firm founded in 1963 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the Big Three (or MBB, the world’s three largest management consulting firms by rev ...

and held various management roles at its

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

and

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

offices. During his time at Delta between 2005 and 2007, Whitehurst oversaw the company's recovery from

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

, as well as its struggle against

US Airways US Airways (formerly USAir) was a major United States airline that operated from 1937 until its merger with American Airlines in 2015. It was originally founded in History of aviation in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh as a mail delivery airline called ...

in 2006, who had repeatedly proposed mergers to the company. In 2013,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

Governor

Pat McCrory Patrick Lloyd McCrory (born October 17, 1956) is an American businessman, politician and radio host who served as the 74th governor of North Carolina from 2013 to 2017. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 53rd Mayor ...

appointed Whitehurst as a member and vice-chairman of the North Carolina Economic Development Board. In 2014, Whitehurst was selected as the recipient of the NC State Park Scholarships program's William C. Friday Award.

Early life

Born in Georgia, Whitehurst grew up in

Columbus Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to: * Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer * Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio Columbus may also refer to: Places ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

. He graduated from

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Economics. He also attended

University of Erlangen–Nuremberg University of Erlangen–Nuremberg (german: Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, FAU) is a Public University, public research university in the cities of Erlangen and Nuremberg in Bavaria, Germany. The name Friedrich–Alexander ...

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian German, East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian language, Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative d ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, spent a year of his undergraduate education in the General Course at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

, and received an MBA from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

Career

After working for the Boston Consulting Group throughout 1989 to 2001, Whitehurst began working for Delta Air Lines, where he was Senior Vice President, and later Chief Network and Planning Officer. He was appointed by then-CEO

Gerald Grinstein Gerald ("Jerry") Grinstein (born 1932) is an American businessman, the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Delta Air Lines. He was CEO of Burlington Northern Railroad from 1985 to 1995, and joined Delta's board of directors in 1987. He became C ...

in 2005 as Chief Operating Officer, where he oversaw the company's bankruptcy and recovery from an attempted takeover from US Airways. Whitehurst became a prominent figure in the campaign known as "Keep Delta My Delta", having believed in the integrity of the company and its employees enough to resist the merger proposal and resolve the bankruptcy. He left the company on good terms in 2007. Whitehurst then joined

as CEO in December 2007. Following IBM's acquisition of Red Hat (in July 2019), later in January 2020 it was announced that Whitehurst will be appointed president of IBM on 6 April. On July 2, 2021 Whitehurst announced his resignation from IBM. On December 20, 2021, Whitehurst joined the Board of Directors at

cybersecurity Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, the ...

and

systems management Systems management refers to enterprise-wide administration of distributed systems including (and commonly in practice) computer systems. Systems management is strongly influenced by network management initiatives in telecommunications. The ap ...

company

Tanium Tanium is a privately held cybersecurity and systems management company with headquarters in Kirkland, Washington and its operations center in Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the ...

as an independent director.

Publications

Whitehurst's first book, ''The Open Organization: Igniting Passion and Performance'', was published in 2015 by

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Massach ...

References

External links

Red Hat profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitehurst, Jim Boston Consulting Group people Delta Air Lines people Harvard Business School alumni Living people Open source people People from Columbus, Georgia Red Hat people Rice University alumni American chief operating officers American technology chief executives 1967 births Businesspeople from Georgia (U.S. state)