Indian-origin technology executive Arvind Krishna is the incoming CEO of American IT giant International Business Machines (IBM) after a “world-class succession process”, succeeding Virginia Rometty, who described him as the “right CEO for the next era at IBM” and “well-positioned” to lead the company into the cloud and cognitive era.

Krishna, 57, will take over on his new role on April 6.

Krishna had joined IBM in 1990 and has an undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

During his stint at Wipro, Krishna has held positions of a general manager and vice president of several key IBM divisions.  He is currently the senior vice president for IBM’s Cloud and Cognitive Software.

“I am thrilled and humbled to be elected as the next Chief Executive Officer of IBM, and appreciate the confidence that Ginni and the Board have placed in me,” Krishna said in a press statement released by IBM.

Krishna said, “IBM has such talented people and technology that we can bring together to help our clients solve their toughest problems.”

“I am looking forward to working with IBMers, Red Hatters and clients around the world at this unique time of fast-paced change in the IT industry. We have great opportunities ahead to help our clients advance the transformation of their business while also remaining the global leader in the trusted stewardship of technology,” Krishna said.

With this announcement, Krishna has joined the growing list of Indian-origin executives at the helm of some of the biggest multinational companies. He is now a part of the club that includes Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga, PepsiCo’s former CEO Indra Nooyi and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.

Rometty, who had been IBM’s Chairman, President and CEO, will continue as Executive Chairman of the Board and serve through the end of the year, when she will retire. She described Krishna as the “right CEO for the next era at IBM” who is “well-positioned to lead IBM and its clients into the cloud and cognitive era.”

Rometty said Krishna is a “brilliant technologist who has played a significant role in developing our key technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum computing and blockchain. He is also a superb operational leader, able to win today while building the business of tomorrow.”

She further added that in Krishna, the Board has elected a “proven technical and business-savvy leadership team.”

Experts believe that Krishna’s skill set is important for the firm as it currently struggles to play a significant role in cloud computing, where it has been outpaced with giants like Microsoft, Google and Amazon. His experience in leading IBM’s strategy which focuses on the hybrid cloud and the acquisition of Red hat is being considered as a major component of the game plan.

Lead Director of the IBM Board of Directors Michael Eskew said with the strong foundation now established by Rometty for IBM’s future, the Board is confident that Krishna is the “right CEO to lead IBM”.

“The Board ran a world-class succession process and found in Arvind a leader with the business acumen, operational skills, and technology vision needed to guide IBM in this fast-moving industry,” Eskew said.

Other than Krishna, the IBM Board also elected James Whitehurst, IBM Senior Vice President and CEO of Red Hat, as IBM President.

Krishna and Whitehurst will be seen working closely in the coming times.

Analysts lauded Whitehurst’s appointment saying that it is a good sign to see and an outsider and a long-time IBMer running the company.

(With input from agencies)