All right. I dont consider myself a journalist. To take on the life of being an interviewer even though i have a day job running a private equity firm. Find leadership . So, when you wake up in the morning to say look at what i have achieved, i am incredibly proud of what i have done. That is a good way to start. I dont think i had either of those on that first day. On that first day i just thought about what an honor it was and what a responsibility it is. That feeling get of, you wake up at morning realizing you are the steward of something so it is a different feeling. When i was growing up, ibm was the dominant Technology Company in the world. Do you think it has the same strength in the computer world as it had in the 1960s . I think it is great but for reason you did not mention. I think the greatness is if you can reinvent yourself over and over. Once, then twice. Three or four times. This is a really Competitive Industry we are in. It is wanting to have technology. It is another to have the ok . How on how to use it, i think while we have gone through all sorts of products i sort of silver side as we really do help change the way the world works. I go way back. Ibm started with meat slicers, then it was clocks tabulating, and it was the era of the mainframe, the back office. Then it reinvented itself again into software and services. And now we reinvent ourselves again. To me, that reinvention and that dna is what makes it unique. David lets talk about your background for a moment. You grew up in chicago and you have Three Sisters . Ginni two sisters and a brother. David ok, three siblings. At one point your father left your mother, and your mother was not collegeeducated at the time. How did she support four children . Ginni i continue to learn a lot from my mom. I give my mom a lot of credit for all four of us. As david said, my mother had a high school degree, then quickly had children right after that. I was in my early teens when my dad chose to leave. It was sudden. My mother found herself with four kids, no money, soon to be no home, soon to be no food. As i said, i learned she was so intent on not letting other people define who she was. We had to do some things for a short time. She had to go on food stamps. We had to get help. That is what entitlement programs in this country are for in many ways. But she went back to school. I had to help, i was the oldest. She went back to school at night and learned a profession, and as and she became the head of administration for the sleep clinic in chicago. A lot of people and family, like everyones, they pitched in. My mom really taught us. The lesson i learned is never let someone else define who you are. She would never let that situation define who she was. David you were the babysitter . Ginni i went to pta meetings, bugle lessons. David did you get paid . Ginni no, i did not get paid. I probably should go sum that up. David you had a scholarship to go to northwestern . Ginni i did. Im proud of my brothers and sisters all. My mom never complained or said much, but we all watched what she did. They sometimes say i am the underachiever. My brothers and sisters have been incredibly successful, and that is the work ethic my mom instilled in us. When i went to northwestern and i did have a scholarship, because we all looked for ways to put ourselves to school. David your mother is still alive. Does she call you and say how well youre doing or that your other siblings are doing just as well . [laughter] ginni she calls and talks about all things normal mothers talk about. Her biggest thing this past easter, she was at my house and i was having to leave in the middle of the day to get to the airport. My mom says, hey, before you leave, i have your annual report and i have written a set of notes on it. I am like, great, im going to get a report card from my mother. The first thing a mom does is look at the pictures. But my mom says, i loved this annual report. This annual report, i understand what ibm does. And it was 50 short vignettes on how the world and industries have changed because of watson, ai, cloud computing, and how it will make life better. My mom goes, this is now i understand. And she had comments about the look and the paper type, so she gave me a report card. David did you give these comments to your colleagues . Ginni i did. [laughter] ginni i gave them all. I have a large retail shareholder base. David you graduated from northwestern. Although you had a scholarship from General Motors, you are not required to work at General Motors, but you felt you should . Ginni yeah, this was an effort to get women and minorities into businesses. At that time, General Motors had a program where they went to the best schools and said, if i can get you, i will pay your tuition, room and board and everything. A professor said to me, you need to look at this program. In return, work there for the summers. Otherwise, no strings attached. Him a wonderful set of internships with them. When i graduated, i felt a real sense of obligation to first go to gm. I had a lot of other offers, but to go to gm with the Computer Science and engineering degree david were a lot of women taking those courses at northwestern in those days . Ginni what do you think . David not that many . Ginni no, i was probably one of the only woman in many of those classes. Even then. David you hear of an opportunity to go to a Company Called ibm. Ginni some think there was a long thoughtout career plan. Im sorry to tell you i had been working at General Motors and while i liked what i was doing, i really felt because i liked technology, it was the idea of applying it to a lot of different industries. It was as simple as my husband said, i have a friend and his dad works for ibm. Why dont you call him . I think it was my husband who set the interview up. To be honest with you. David did he get a finders fee . Ginni i am still paying that finders fee. [laughter] ginni i went to the interview and was hired. David what area initially . Ginni i started out as a systems engineer. I worked in banking, insurance, and i had many experiences through my years. I remember i had gone into consulting and have learned a lot of things, and it was time to do another job. The story i always tell is that i worked for a gentleman, a very good mentor, and he said i am getting a new job, and you are getting my job. You have to go to an interview. You are one of the candidates, go to this interview. I thought, hmm. I go to the interview and they tell me about the job and i am thinking, im not sure im ready for this. This is a big job. Just a little more time and i would be ready. I said, i would like to go home and talk it over. Give me overnight to think about it. I get home and my husband is sitting there and as usual, i am talking, talking and hes like mmhmm. I tell him about this interview. I said i wanted to go home and sleep on it. He says, do you think a male would have asked that question . He he says, do you think a man would have been answered the question that way . I can remember it like it was yesterday. I said, no. I went in the next day, i took the job immediately. And the man who was my mentor, who suggested it to me, he said, do not do that again. I said, i understand. It is what formed this basis for me that i think guided my career, which is growth and comfort never coexist. You have to get very comfortable with being uncomfortable. It is when you learn the most. David when you started doing these things, did you think there was the chance you could be the ceo . Do you think ibm, like many companies, would never make a woman a ceo . Ginni that never entered my mind that ibm would make a choice based on gender. Never. For all my time there has been the most Inclusive Company i have known. When you interview others do you think they i never thought about that. I always felt you do great in your current job, it earns your right in your next job. , when you meet with president s or others ceo cause, do you think they are willing to say, mr. President , that is not a good idea, or let me give you my thoughts . Ginni in my experience, people are respectfully honest and give their opinions. Just as there are times, whether it is a president or a Prime Minister, where we agree, and there are times when we do not agree. David lets talk about ibm for a moment. It is a hardware and software company, a consulting company. What would you say it is today . Ginni keep going. [laughter] ginni when i say an enterprise company, we uniquely live at that intersection of tech and business. As you said, we built over time hardware and layered it with software. We built integrated services, and we are becoming a cloud and Cognitive Solutions company. There will be another reinvention of ibm one day in the future again, but today it is about that. It is not about the technology. It is cloud, it is a. I. It is the why. As i say i feel we are the champions for business. I will tell you what i mean by that. Right now, if you ask me to pick one word about what ibm is reinventing around, i would say data. There is gold in that data. We are on the verge of companies being able to use all that. This to me is Companies Going on the offense against startups, against disruption, you do it with that data. You will need new tools, and that is where ai comes in. David one of the tools is named watson. Watson is named after ginni our founder, thomas watson. David watson got some attention because of jeopardy. Ginni it is funny how many people still remember that. I really give us credit, if i might, having relit the world of a. I. You asked what i did early in my career, i was an a. I. Specialist at one time. It is not like a. I. Is brandnew. There are a number of things that make it different. What we did back then on jeopardy, we had been working on a. I. For a good five years before. This gets back to the idea if you move to where you think there is value in tech, we believe there is value in this data, and you have to be prepared for this world to do it costeffectively, and more important, you would have to have technology that did not get programmed. That is the difference with what watson and a. I. Is you dont say, if this, do that. Every device you have programmed. If this, do that. Somebody has to tell it what to do. Your smart phone, you name it. Watson takes data of all kinds, understands, reasons, and learns over that data. That will help you make better decisions. This is an interesting stat we are sharing. In the world, we think there is a market of 2 trillion for making Better Business decisions. Some of it is rooted in plain fundamental facts that when you and i make decisions you may be better at this. David unlikely. Ginni one third are right, one third are not optimal, and one third are wrong. It transcends everything. David lets talk about the life of a ceo a large company. How much time are you on the road traveling now . Ginni probably 50 . David customers are mostly interested in what . When you meet with them, you try to tell them why ibm is better . Ginni no. Of course, always, well, in some way. I think many clients look at us as a bit of the mirror image. I hear this from them. They are like, i remember years ago they were saying to me, this is a lot of change. I remember saying, be careful, this is coming to a theater near you. This idea i believe our transformation mirrors what every companies are going through. You rebuild yourself around data and clouds, you have to change how you do the work and who the people are who do the work. David how do you measure your success as ceo . Is it a share price . Is it earnings, earningspershare, Revenue Growth . Ginni what the boards most focused on is transforming ibm for this next cognitive era. The milepost we put out there is as i said part of the portfolio is we build new products and services, which is now 42 of ibm, 34 billion. It has doubledigit growth. That is an important set of new offerings that team created. At the same time, there are other things we do for clients. I think people forget we run the banks of the world, railroads of the world, airlines of the world. It is nine out of 10, 10 out of 10. That is why i both mirror and help them transition to the future, run the current world, transition to the future and become the future. That is a serious obligation. Some of that does not grow as fast as other pieces, and the new growth is fast, but we need to help transition from era to era. The measurement is as we build the new businesses and keep moving higher value, that is our distinction. David does it bother you that you have more employees, more revenue, more customers all over the world that Companies Like i assume apple or amazon or facebook, but they have higher market capitalizations . Does that strike you as unfair in some ways . Ginni i always want to work on higher market capitalization. The unfair part i do not feel these things are a burden. What we do is different. It is this combination of having technology and knowhow, which means you have both of those things together. David every country you visit around the world, i assume if you want to meet the Prime Minister, president , you would have no problem meeting. Ginni yeah, but you dont abuse that. There are important issues around the world. Almost every government we talked to about cybersecurity, it is important to talk about things around digital trade. The other is about workforce and skills. When you look at why there is division between people and why is there inequality, every time you will trace it to skills and opportunity. That is what we have been working on. David when you are meeting with President Trump or other president s, do you see that ceos are willing to say, mr. President , that is not a good idea, or let me give your my thoughts, or are they quiet . Ginni my experience is that people are respectfully honest. They give their opinions. Just as if there are times whether a president or a Prime Minister where we agree, and other times when we do not agree. In our case, it is an example with the paris agreement, we believe america should stay in there. So we shared our viewpoints on that. These issues are important to our business and clients. David do you feel a certain responsibility as a woman ceo to mentor other women and speak out on issues relating to women . Ginni you always want to be noticed and rewarded for what you did, your contribution. I would always think, this has nothing to do with gender, almost blind to that. I really came to learn and see how important it is to be a role models. You have to accept that you are a role model on the appropriate things. David do you think a woman who rose up to be the leader of ibm had to be better than the men, or it doesnt make a difference . Ginni i do not think in ibm it made a difference. David people who are subordinate who come to you and tell you their ideas, do you ever yell at them . Which men often do. Or are you quiet about it and tell them their ideas are no good . How do you tell people youre not happy . Ginni i am not a screamer. Never was. David you dont throw things . Ginni i dont think ive ever thrown anything. But i have always believed in the way to challenge things is to challenge them, to be intellectual. I always feel, you need to know what you are talking about. To me, i have no trouble being the one to ask questions, and i think that is the best way to challenge things. David do you feel a certain responsibility as a woman ceo to mentor other women and speak out on issues for women . Ginni this is an interesting question, david, because i have grown to be comfortable as a role model. I think many of my colleagues would say, and maybe it is a bit as we came through our businesses, you always want to be noticed and rewarded for what you did, your contribution. I would always think, this has got nothing to do with gender, almost blind to that. Over time, though, i came to learn and see how important it is that there be role models. You have to accept the fact that you are a role model on the appropriate things. At one point, it was another image that sticks out in my mind. This is maybe 10, 15 years ago. I was down in australia giving a Financial Services presentation. I thought i was doing an ok job of this. And a couple people came up to me afterwards and i thought he this man was going to tell me, this is great, or he disagrees. He said to me, i wish my daughters had been here. It is funny the sort of moments you remember. I remember thinking that is why you do have to realize any of us in these positions of any kind of influence, we are a role model for someone, and women do need role models. We are still a small minority that run these companies. They need role models to say, yes, that is possible. I can be that. It is hard to dream to be something if you dont see other people like you. David are you disappointed or surprised that there are relatively few female ceos still . Ginni i would hope there would be more by now. I think this is a very conscious effort. We make a conscious effort. One of the biggest things is to keep women in the workforce. There is no doubt when women have children, or ailing parents, there are many reasons that women come in or out of the workforce. One of the things you can do is do everything you can to keep them in, and their odds are much higher to keep going. One of our newest benefits are shipping breastmilk for mothers who are nursing so they can keep working if they want to. This idea of keeping women in the workforce, to me, is one of the most important ways to create the pipeline for these roles. David ibm has a tradition of ceos retiring earlier than other companies. Is your thinking you would do it for a bit longer and what would you do after you left as current ceo . Ginni i would i am not going to say my age, but then im reminded it is public information. [laughter] ginni but it is not a rule for us. It is not a steadfast rule. There has been some tradition, but i am not retiring now. My work is not done. I will still be here for quite a while, and what i will do then . David would you ever go into government . Ginni i dont even think about that right now. David in the stage fit category, you are ginni does that mean you think i look fit . David you are fit. Ginni thank you. That is how you get a compliment. David you are a golfer. Ginni that does not keep you fit. My husband loves golf and i have Great Respect for golf as a sport. Tradition,ng history. I do not have the time to be very good. The other way i do and people dont think this is funny, i do boxing. That is somethi