Samuel (Sam) J. Palmisano served as chairman, president and chief executive officer of IBM from Jan. 1, 2003 through Dec. 31, 2011. He was chairman of the IBM Board of Directors from January through September 2012, and served as a senior adviser to IBM until his retirement on December 1, 2012. Under his leadership, IBM achieved record financial performance, transformed itself into a globally integrated enterprise and introduced its Smarter Planet agenda.

A graduate of The Johns Hopkins University, Palmisano’s career with IBM began in 1973, when he joined the company as a sales rep in Baltimore, Maryland. Over the course of his 39-year career with the company, he held a series of positions on his way to becoming CEO.

Among his many roles, in January 1993 he was appointed president of Integrated Systems Solutions Corp. (ISSC), an IBM wholly owned subsidiary, that became part of IBM Global Services. ISSC was responsible for providing a variety of information technology services solutions and advanced network services. He became chief executive officer of ISSC in October 1993.

Palmisano assumed responsibility for IBM's strategic outsourcing business in January 1995, and in 1998 was named senior vice president and group executive for IBM Global Services. Managing some 135,000 employees, he was responsible for worldwide operations of the world's largest IT services provider.

In 1999 he was named senior vice president and group executive for IBM's Enterprise Systems Group, with responsibility for IBM's server family and the Storage Subsystems Division. In September 2000, he took over as IBM president and chief operating officer.

After stepping aside from his post at IBM, Palmisano became Chairman of the Center for Global Enterprise (CGE), a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to the study of the contemporary corporation, the management science of the globally integrated enterprise (GIE), global economic trends, and their impact on society.  The CGE was established in 2013 to help educate societal stakeholders – as well as leaders from the private sector, public sector, and academia – on the globally integrated economy and its promise for a better future.

In 2016, US President Barack Obama appointed Palmisano vice chairman of the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, a new White House commission tasked with helping the country better defend itself against, and withstand, cyberattacks.