Summary of Arvind Krishna's Performance as IBM's CEO

Summary of IBM's Overall Performance 2020 to 2025

​In April 2020, IBM installed its tenth chief executive officer: Arvind Krishna.
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​How has Arvind Krishna performed since taking over the corner office? ​At the end of Arvind Krishna’s sixth year as chief executive officer (2020 through 2025) his performance continues as it started which can be described with one word: unremarkable. Most of his "gains" over this six year period as IBM's Chief Executive Officer have failed to match an inflation rate of 26% over the same period.

After six years, Arvind Krishna's performance numbers at the end of 2025 were as follows:

• IBM Revenue has fallen over his six years of leadership by -12.5% to $67.5 billion​. Meanwhile inflation over this same six year period exaggerates this downward trend in revenue/sales as inflation was up approximately 26%.
  
  
• IBM Profits have risen 13%, but this is only because of a single gain of almost 76% in 2025. Even with this profit performance gain in 2025, IBM's profit over Arvind Krishna's six year period is only up 13%. Meanwhile inflation over the same six year period was up 26% or double the gains in profitability.
  
  
• IBM Employee Sales and Profit Productivity at first glance would look like good improvements, as profit productivity over his six years as Chief Executive Officer was up 50% and sales productivity was up 16.9%. But inflation again adds an important insight into these gains. Over this same six year period inflation was 26%: significantly higher than the 16.9% increase in sales productivity and more than half of the realized gains in profit productivity.
  
  

• ​IBM Shareholder Returns was the "diamond in the rough" for Arvind Krishna in 2024 and 2025. While increasing significantly, an investor could have gotten better returns in several technology index funds as IBM failed over this six-year period to stay ahead of the technology indexes. But it, finally, outperformed some large company stock indexes. Investors, though, are still not being rewarded for the additional risk of owning a single stock as IBM returned 19.57% over this six year period but an investment in a technology stock index fund would have yielded 25.08%.
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• IBM Shareholder Risk remains unaddressed by IBM’s corner office—goodwill and intangible assets are historically very, very high. IBM's Total Shareholder Equity is -$46 billion in the red. Although unlikely, if IBM should declare bankruptcy its shareholders may be left "holding the bag."
  
  
• IBM's Market Value is a very bright spot in Arvind Krishna's six-years. Through 2025, it is up by +134%: Rising from $119 billion at the end of 2019 to $278 billion as the end of 2025. This is one of the few areas that Arvind Krishna's performance betters inflation.
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• IBM Worldwide Full-Time Employment fell by 2.3% in 2025 and is now down by 25.2% since the end of 2019. Under Arvind Krishna's leadership, IBM has terminated 1 out of every 4 IBM employees and the corporation still fails to publish its United States employment numbers.

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Details of IBM's Overall Performance 2020 to 2025 Under Arvind Krishna.