Louis V. Gerstner, the Outsider Who Turned Around IBM, Dies at 83

Louis V. Gerstner Jr., the outsider who revived IBM in the 1990s by shifting the company from a declining mainframe business toward consulting and services, died on Saturday in Jupiter, Fla. He was 83, the executive director of Gerstner Philanthropies, Kara Klein, said. The family did not disclose a cause of death.

Mr. Gerstner lived in Hobe Sound, Fla. Mr. Gerstner became chief executive of IBM in 1993 after a career that included McKinsey, American Express and RJR Nabisco. He was the first leader hired from outside the company since IBM’s founding in 1911, a signal of how badly the company was struggling.

Facing plunging mainframe revenue and predictions of IBM’s demise, he moved quickly to cut costs and trim the workforce, overhaul a bureaucratic culture and send senior executives to reassure customers. He redirected the company’s focus to services and consulting while stabilizing its mainframe business with lower-cost chip designs.

His strategy of keeping IBM intact rather than breaking it into parts was, he later wrote, “the first strategic decision and, I believe, the most important decision I ever made.” The choice, and his other changes, helped lift IBM’s market value nearly sixfold during his tenure, which ended in 2002.

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