Nick Donofrio

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Nicholas M. Donofrio Executive Vice President, Innovation and Technology, IBM Corporation

A 42-year IBM veteran, Nick Donofrio is a renowned global business leader who over the past decade has restored Big Blue’s return to its familiar position as a global technology and innovation leader. He is a tireless champion of the engineering and technical professions, and personally commits hundreds of hours every year to work with women and underrepresented minorities to enrich the technical professions around the world with a diversity of culture and thought.

Among the many milestones accomplished under Nick’s leadership, IBM has generated more patents than any other company for 13 consecutive years; built “Blue Gene,” a family of the world’s fastest supercomputers designed to help scientists unravel the mysteries of both physical and life sciences; developed breakthrough microprocessor architectures, including Power and Cell, which will be the engine for every major consumer gaming platform and a host of other computing applications; advanced the open environment and open industry standards;developed state-of-the art Services Oriented Architecture assets and skills; entered a ground-breaking five-year research partnership with The National Geographic Society to map how humankind populated the planet; developed and nurtured one of the largest and most capable technical talent pools in the industrial world.

Nick is a Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Fellow of the U.K-based Royal Academy of Engineering, a member of the US-based National Academy of Engineering, and serves on the U.S. Department of Education’s Commission for the Future of Higher Education.

In 2002, he was recognized by Europe's Institution of Electrical Engineers with the Mensforth International Gold Medal for outstanding contributions to the advancement of manufacturing engineering. In 2003, he was named Industry Week magazine's Technology Leader of the Year, the University of Arizona's Technical Executive of the Year, and was presented with the Rodney D. Chipp Memorial Award by the Society of Women Engineers for his outstanding contributions to the advancement of women in the engineering field. In 2005, he was presented with Syracuse University's highest alumni honor, the George Arents Pioneer Medal, and he was named the Overall Technology Leader of the Year by CNBC. In 2006, he was honored by The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art with the Urban Visionaries Award for Engineering; was named one of Business Week magazine’s 25 Top Innovation Champions, and received the Robert Fletcher Award for distinguished achievement and service from Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering.

Over the past decade in particular, Nick has been the catalyst in transforming the technology culture in IBM from one focused solely on technical achievement to one in which technical leaders are motivated, active participants in devising end-to-end business solutions for IBM clients around the world. Technical leaders are today equal partners with the leaders of IBM’s global business units in developing IBM’s business strategy.

Early in 2004, the US Council on Competitiveness -- an organization of more than 200 CEOs, university presidents and labor leaders – launched The National Innovation Initiative (NII) to devise a plan to restart America's innovation engine. Nick was a charter member of the NII and he chaired one of its seven workgroups focused on 21st-Century Innovation. The full NII Report was released during a December 15, 2004 summit in Washington, D.C. Among its key recommendations are the development of new incentives and support for business creation, a new intellectual property regime, and a national investment plan tailored to support America's most promising areas for innovation and ensure its research competitiveness in the future.

Also in 2004, under Nick’s direction, IBM launched the Global Innovation Outlook (GIO) – a vastly different approach to the way technology and business trends are analyzed. Mr. Donofrio enabled IBM – for the first time in its history -- to engage outsiders as part of its technology and business-trend analysis process. The collaboration identified three broad swaths of global society in which there is rich opportunity – and often pressing need – for innovation throughout the world. Those areas are health care, government and its citizens, and the business of work and life. With the GIO, Mr. Donofrio initiated an effort to fill a huge void in addressing the lack of dialogue around important issues among government, business and academia. The GIO continues, under Mr. Donofrio’s leadership, to take on issues and spark initiatives that will begin to help resolve some of the barriers to solving large societal issues.

He is the holder of seven technology patents and is a member of numerous technical and science honor societies. He is a Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Fellow of the U.K-based Royal Academy of Engineering, a member of the US-based National Academy of Engineering, a member of the Board of Directors for the Bank of New York, a member of the Board of Trustees at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; co-chair of the New York Hall of Science, and a member of the Board of Directors for The Council for the United States and Italy.