(Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp (N:IBM) Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty will step down after eight years in the role and will be succeeded by the head of its cloud business Arvind Krishna in April.
Rometty, who has been with the company for 40 years, will continue as executive chairman and will retire at the end of the year, the company said.
Shares of the company were up nearly 4% in extended trading.
Krishna, 57, who joined IBM in 1990, was the architect of the company's $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat last year.
"Arvind is the right CEO for the next era at IBM," Rometty, 62, said in a statement.
Under Rometty's leadership, IBM has shifted focus to cloud business through a series of acquisitions and by selling some of its legacy units.