IBM has announced the hiring of Bob Lord as its Chief Digital Officer. Lord was formerly serving as the President of AOL, and was also the Global CEO of Razorfish, a company owned by Publicis. Lord has a rare blend of experiences in the fields of both advertising technology and marketing services, which have been the area of interest for IBM off late.
An IBM spokesperson said in a release, “As our Chief Digital Officer, Bob will accelerate and scale all aspects of IBM’s digital presence, operations and ecosystem. He will be responsible for the IBM digital platform, digital sales and marketing, and our developer ecosystem.” Most partners of IBM and former colleagues of Lord have welcomed the decision and are convinced that his skills will help IBM to make inroads in the field of digital marketing and advertising technology.
This new hire follows a series of acquisitions by IBM towards building a full range digital agency practice, similar to other tech world consulting giants such as Accenture and Deloitte. IBM’s iX is already the world’s fourth largest digital agency and has been at the helm of most of these acquisitions. Some of the acquisitions include Resource/Ammirati, a brand-building firm, Aperto, a design agency, and Ecx.io, a commerce specialist.
More recently, IBM announced the acquisition of Bluewolf Group LLC, one of the leading SalesForce consulting and integration partners. Upbeat about this acquisition, Bridget van Kralingen, Senior Vice President, IBM Global Business Services, said in a statement, “There is no question that the consumer-grade experience has emerged as a fundamental element in modern business strategy.” She added, “Meeting that expectation defines next-generation differentiation and competitive position, and with Bluewolf, we add expertise to scale that capability to the cloud-based capabilities of Salesforce.”
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The news of the hiring was also tweeted by David Kenny, who came onboard IBM after the acquisition of The Weather Company last year, where he was the CEO. He is currently the General Manager of Watson, the artificial intelligence platform of IBM.
Date: April 5, 2016