Today I can announce that I am joining IBM Interactive to help grow their Social Business practice.
I have greatly enjoyed my nearly two and a half years as CEO of Kred, and I am leaving the team in good hands, and with their best wishes.
You can watch a short video interview explaining the move below.
I have been watching IBM as a company for a long time now. When I was working for Telstra in Australia in the late 90s, a very smart chap called Scott McCallum was seconded from IBM to work with Telstra on our eBusiness strategy.
It was by working with Scott that I got to see how IBM thinks at close quarters. As part of this relationship, I visited IBM’s HQ in Armonk and also their research facility in Nice, and my professional respect for IBM has only grown since then.
More recently, while at Visible Technologies, IBM Global Business Services in Sydney was a client of mine as we helped them with an eminence program to highlight the consultants who were subject matter experts on social media.
Over the last year or so, IBM’s work and presence in Social Business caught my eye.
Of particular interest has been how their CEO Ginni Rometty has articulated their digital strategy as a company, and how she is right behind their social business push.
If any company is going to make a real impact in social business, then it is IBM.
I know I am joining the company at an exciting time as social business is becoming a regular board item in fortune 500 companies, and IBM is clearly investing in this space and taking market share.
My role at IBM will be as a Partner in IBM Interactive based in London with a global remit to help drive understanding and deliver social business solutions to key IBM clients.
My experience in digital from as far back as 1983 and social from around 2004 will come in handy, as well as my experience running companies in Australia and the UK.
What I am bringing to IBM is practical experience from working with previous clients such as American Express, Ogilvy, Commonwealth Bank, ITV and eBay to develop and deliver smart social strategies.
In conjunction, my experience in social media as both a practitioner, as well as a long-time blogger and influencer will be relevant as I convince C-suites of the benefits of becoming a social business.
You can expect that my tweets and blog posts will continue as always, and one of the attractions of IBM is they actively encourage their 430,000 employees to contribute via social channels both internally and externally.
It is an exciting time for our industry as social media grows up and becomes a social business, and I am thrilled to be able to call myself an IBMer from today.
I can be contacted as always via my contact page or tweet me @AndrewGrill