(Reuters) - IBM (NYSE:IBM) Corp on Thursday named former financial chief Martin Schroeter to head its new IT infrastructure services unit when it becomes public, as the 109-year old company shifts gears to focus on its high-margin cloud business.
IBM will list its unit, which provides technical support for 4,600 clients in 115 countries, as a separate company with a new name by the end of 2021.
The world's first big computing firm has set its sights on the so-called hybrid cloud, where it sees a $1 trillion market opportunity as more companies use a combination of their own datacenters and leased computing resources to manage and process data.
An IBM veteran, Schroeter was chief financial officer from 2014 to 2017 and also served as senior vice president of global markets, before leaving the company in June 2020.
Schroeter will assume the new role on Jan. 15.
IBM's new company, which will have 90,000 employees, will focus on the management and modernization of IT infrastructure across industries.