IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) said Wednesday that Anne Altman, a long-time Big Blue employee and general manager of the U.S. federal government and industries division, will retire by the end of the month.
She will leave the post as IBM's head of federal sales division on Jan. 31 and will be replaced by Sam Gordy, who was recently a senior vice president at Leidos Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LDOS). A statement from the company said Gordy has "20 years of experience in key areas including cybersecurity, analytics and enterprise information systems."
I wrote last November about Altman's nearly 35 years at the iconic technology giant. She began as a "co-op" in 1981 — a work program for college students.
"During her tenure, she devoted her leadership and passion to drive IBM solutions that have enabled our U.S. federal agency customers in so many ways, helping transform them in the process," a statement from the Armonk, New York-based technology giant said.
Her first client as a full-time IBM systems engineer was the FBI. She later held roles in sales and management, helped launch a new software division, and ran one of IBM's signature product division, the System z mainframes. In 2013, Altman was named head of the federal division, overseeing 7,000 employees, and more than 1,300 customers in more than 80 countries.
An IBM spokesman wrote to me in an email that she "has no immediate plans" post-retirement.
"After 35 years, she will have the time to focus on many of her interests that she has not had time to," the spokesman wrote. "She definitely has an Act 2 and Act 3; she just doesn't know what it is yet."
